Last month I attended the “Night Club” in Parliament, a specific event to highlight the challenges faced by those working in the night time economy.
It was an opportunity for parliamentarians to hear at first hand from business and industry leaders, professors, doctors, sleep experts and champions of the campaign about the essential role of night-time workers and to advocate for better protections of their rights and wellbeing.
I had the chance to speak to Ben Lumley from Liminal Space to discuss how shift work affects women. My Committee has done an enormous amount of work on the menopause and how it affects women in the workplace, which resonates with the negative impacts of night work on women’s hormonal and reproductive health/cycle. For example, female shift workers are more likely to report menstrual irregularity and longer menstrual cycles than non-shift-workers. And sadly, researchers have also found women who work nightshifts have an increased risk of miscarriage.
Liminal Space’s and the TUC’s research shows that, as of 2020 2.8 million women were working regular night shifts equating to about 40% of the UK’s night working cohort.
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