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Self-care is defined as the ability to take care of one’s body and health with or without the help of healthcare personnel. The purpose of this paper is to explore the opportunities for self-care among imprisoned women within the constraints of a confined life, which, in turn, affect their health.

Primary data have been collected through semi-structured interviews with 90 women in three prisons in the Indian state of West Bengal.

Findings reveal that a majority of the women cited the inability to self-care was due to factors such as constricted architecture, specific penal policies that thwarted relational contexts in prisons and also the loss of control over their consumptive choices. However, it was found that coping mechanisms also existed among some women who actively constituted penal spaces for self-care. Many long-term imprisoned women tried to actively engage themselves in daily activities such as the “labour” allotted to them.

The paper concludes that abilities to self-care have a deep impact on the health of women, which if not facilitated will lead to a health depleting experience. At a time when Indian prisons are focussing on rehabilitation, the recommendations for providing opportunities for self-care in prisons can minimize the “pains” of imprisonment and pave the way for rehabilitation.

The research is based on data collected during original fieldwork conducted in three prisons in West Bengal, India. It provides valuable insights on how penal environments affect self-care opportunities of imprisoned women.

Purpose – Academic campuses in India in recent years have witnessed an increase in the proportion of older people due to the rise in the age of superannuation of faculty and their cohabitation with older parents. However, such campuses continue to have a skewed program which favor the needs of the younger population. For the present study, a residential academic campus equipped with a health care facility was selected to understand the challenges of the family caregivers of older people residing in it.

Methodology/Approach – Exploratory in-depth interviews were conducted with 154 family caregivers. Secondary data were obtained from the campus hospital records.

Findings – Data revealed that family caregivers experienced various challenges in providing older care in the campus due to unavailability of paid supportive caregivers, lack of community support, and inadequate housing. Though the academic campus has a health care facility, the entitlement rights to it varies among the older people in campus. While the campus health facility was not congenial for family caregiving, it was utilized as a space for providing long-term care. This chapter suggests the need to extend a public heath model of family caregiving in campus.

Research limitations/implications – The study has implication for modifying similar academic campuses in India for facilitating family caregivers of older people.

Originality/Value of Paper – This is the first study of its kind which explored the challenges of family caregiving for older people in academic campuses in India.

Despite studies claiming gender inclusion is beneficial for organizations, the under-representation of females in the workforce is a reality. As recruitment practices impact employees' entry into organizations, examining the salient predictors of job pursuit intention might foster gender inclusivity.

Based on a mixed-method study conducted in two phases (Phase 1: a sample of 2,084 professionals; Phase 2: interviews of 20 senior human resource (HR) professionals and interviews with 26 women professionals), we examine the key predictors of job pursuit intention of women. We employed a qualitative study as Phase 2 employed a qualitative study to understand why some of the proposed hypotheses were not supported.

We found that work–life balance, perceived job security and perceived ethical behavior of organizations were more important for female than the male applicants in influencing their job pursuit intention. Also, the type of work and person–organization (P–O) fit were found to be equally important for both the gender groups. The implications of the study to theory and practice were discussed.

Our study extends the existing literature by identifying salient factors (such as work–life balance, perceived job security and ethical citizenship) that are found to be more important for female applicants compared to their male counterparts while pursuing a job. Also, females were found to worry more about losing or not finding a job than males. Our results further indicate that type of work and P–O fit have a significant effect on job pursuit intention for both male and female applicants. The study addresses the need for research on targeted recruitment to increase gender inclusion.

The contribution of this paper lies in identifying critical factors relevant to the female applicants in India who potentially constitute a large talent pool waiting to be leveraged. It adds to the body of knowledge on enabling inclusivity and affirmative action for increasing gender diversity through recruitment. By highlighting the factors that should be given prominence in job promotions to attract more female candidates and emphasizing the gender-focused HR policies and practices and through internal and external communication, it helps practitioners attract and retain female applicants in an emerging economy like India.

Our study contributes in three ways. First, it attempts to plug the gap by investigating gendered preferences in job pursuit intentions between male and female applicants, especially in different cultural environments and in emerging markets such as India. Second, existing studies on job pursuit intentions were based mostly on inputs from student respondents. Our study has collected data from professionals working in organizations who have worked and experienced gender-related HR practices in organizations. Third, our study used a mixed-method approach to get a nuanced understanding of female talent expectations and preferences during the job-seeking behavior.

The fear of the pandemic, confinement at home and the need to work created a unique situation. The pandemic catalyzed work-from-anywhere practice by adopting information and communication technologies (ICT) across all industries. While ICT saved organizations, it increased technostress among the workforce. A better understanding of the adverse effects of ICT usage might enable organizations to manage the mental well-being of the workforce. While technostress is gaining increasing interest, scholarly work investigating the dimensions of technostress and its impact on creating stress across various employee demographics and industry types is missing. Contrary to the prevalent assumptions, the authors theorized and tested the adverse moderation effect of the home-work interface on the linkage between technostress dimensions and stress. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned objective.

The study captures dimensions of technostress and the resulting stress at work using a survey-based analysis of 881 working employees in India, representing multiple industries and functions.

The study indicates that techno-overload, techno-complexity and techno-invasion significantly impact employees during the pandemic. The authors further found that the home-work-interface is a powerful factor in understanding the complex linkage between dimensions of technostress and its outcomes.

Based on the Conservation of Resources Theory and the Job-Demand-Resources model, this study highlights the adverse impact of this trend on employee well-being. However, the study suffers from a cross-sectional research design. The technostress research has focused primarily on static, at-premise environments and mostly on high ICT usage industries. Due to the pandemic, it has neglected the impact of various technostress dimensions across employee cohorts subjected to rapid technology-enabled working. Further, most studies focus on the voluntary choice of remote work. Employees struggle with the unexpected and involuntary shift to technology-enabled remote work. This study contributes to the literature by examining the consequences of technostress in the context of non-voluntary remote work. Contrary to prevailing assumptions, this study highlights the adverse effect of organizational home-work interface in influencing ICT-created stress.

The increasing use of ICT enables telecommuting across the workforce while increasing organizational productivity. Due to the pandemic, these trends will likely change the future of work permanently. To minimize employee stress, practitioners need to reconsider the dimensions of technostress. Further, the study cautions against the prevalent interventions used by practitioners. While practitioners facilitate a home-work interface, it could have adverse consequences. Practitioners may consider the adverse consequences of home-work interface while designing organizational policies.

This study during the pandemic is crucial as research forecasts the likelihood of other cataclysmic events, such as future pandemics and political or climate change events, which may sustain technology-driven remote work practices and remain a feature of the future workplace. Hence understanding the implications of the dimensions of technostress would help organizations and policymakers to implement necessary interventions to minimize employee stress.

The present study examines the dimensions of technostress across multiple industries and job functions in an emerging market marked by a high economic growth rate and an Eastern cultural context. This study presents the dark side of excessive ICT adoption and indicates how organizations and HRM practices can help mitigate some of these effects.