Proceedings of Women in Academia, Research and Management for Work-life Initiatives for Sustainable Health & Empowering Safety (WARM-WISHES 2026)

Women in academia, research, and institutional management often navigate multiple roles that extend beyond professional responsibilities to include familial and social commitments. Balancing these dual roles can significantly influence their physical health, mental well-being, productivity, and career progression. This paper explores the challenges and opportunities associated with work–life balance among women professionals working in higher education institutions and research environments. The study examines how institutional expectations, leadership responsibilities, research demands, and teaching commitments intersect with personal and family roles, often creating pressures that affect women’s overall well-being. It also highlights the importance of supportive organizational cultures, gender-sensitive policies, flexible work arrangements, and safe workplace environments that enable women to manage these responsibilities more effectively. Through a review of existing literature and analysis of contemporary workplace practices, the research identifies key factors that contribute to sustainable professional engagement and improved well-being for women in academic and administrative roles.

Furthermore, the paper emphasizes the role of institutional initiatives such as mentorship programs, wellness policies, childcare support, and inclusive leadership structures in fostering a balanced and healthy work environment. These initiatives not only enhance women’s professional satisfaction and productivity but also contribute to broader institutional development and gender equity. The study concludes that promoting work–life balance is essential for ensuring sustainable health, safety, and empowerment of women in academia and research. By adopting inclusive policies and supportive management practices, academic institutions can create environments where women professionals can successfully navigate their dual roles while contributing meaningfully to knowledge production, leadership, and societal development.

Chikankari, the ethnic Embroidery is a traditional craft of Lucknow for decorating fabric or garments with needles and colorful thread, often enhanced with elements like beads, pearls, sequins, zardozi work and metal strips. Interestingly, the core stitches of Chikankari such as chain stitch, running stitch, satin stitch, buttonhole stitch, and cross stitch have remained fundamental for centuries and have been appreciated in global arena. In fact, it’s a wearer’s delight when it comes to dressing for an occasion. In India, Chikan work, fondly called, Lucknow Chikan is a prominent embroidery tradition with over 400 years of history. Although “Chikan” means embroidery, the craft includes about 36 different basic stitches. Traditionally, chikankari is done with white thread on white muslin. Now it has evolved to include various types of fabrics, colors, and decorative elements like pearls, mirrors, and mukaish work.

Chikankari is mainly practiced by women in Lucknow and is deeply rooted in local household culture. The process is highly labor-intensive and can take months or even years to complete a single piece. Historically, Muslim women adopted this craft as a source of income, passing the skill down through generations. Many women artisans work from home or small workshops, and the craft often supports their families. The problems of the female artisans in this unorganized sector are extremely pathetic, as they work at low wages with no guarantee and lack job security. The artisans have no social benefits, long working hours, and poor working / living conditions and exploitation by middlemen. Unfortunately, in addition to the regular concerns brought on by poverty, women artisans also cope with serious health concerns for which they have insufficient means for treatment. These issues were highlighted by filmmaker Muzaffar Ali in his 1986 film “Anjuman”, which portrays the socio-economic struggles of female Chikankari workers in Lucknow.

This research paper aims to delve into the health issues that chikankari women artisans encounter on daily basis. The research paper will also discuss the physical, social & mental health concerns due to the demanding nature of this ethnic handicraft and the social, personal and economic factors affecting women artisans involve in this industry.

The explosion of digital technologies has transformed children's development contexts, and mothers and other female caregivers are key gatekeepers of children's digital lives. This review examines the complex role of women as the architect of safe digital childhoods, drawing on evidence from health sciences, regulation, developmental science, and gender studies.

This article explores the impact of mothers' digital parenting on children's physical health and cognitive, psychological, and social development based on more than 120 peer-reviewed studies spanning 2010-2024. We assess current regulatory frameworks and processes—from national laws and platform policies to school policies and global treaties—through a gender lens, uncovering regulatory gaps that place a disproportionate responsibility on mothers to ensure digital safety for their children in the absence of institutional support.

The review also explores intersectional factors, including socioeconomic inequalities, cultural factors, and the digital literacy gap among mothers. The findings indicate that maternal digital parenting is a complex and dynamic practice, shaped by competing demands, limited resources, and evolving technological landscapes. Our paper concludes with recommendations for co-regulatory approaches that share digital safety responsibilities between families, platforms, governments, and civil society, as well as building maternal digital literacy and effective policy mechanisms through evidence-based research.

Caregiving is a challenging role that impacts the emotional well-being of women, however it remains the most neglected area in clinical and social research. The present study aims to examine and compare the empathy among three various groups of married women: psychiatric patient caregivers, medical patient caregivers and non-caregiving women.

Methodology: Purposive sampling was used to assess 389 married women (mean age 40.5). The sample comprises psychiatric caregivers (n = 122), medical caregivers (n = 137), and non-caregiving women (n = 130). To collect desired response for empathy Toronto empathy questionnaire developed by Spreng et al. (2009) was used. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA.

Results: One-way ANOVA represents high significant results, which denotes significant differences in empathy scores across three groups. Descriptive statistics reveal that non-caregiver women’s empathy level was highest, followed by medical caregivers and psychiatric caregivers respectively.

Implication: The findings emphasized that women who were actively involved in caregiving, especially for psychiatric patients, demonstrated low empathy among all the groups. This can be due to the absence of adequate amount of societal and institutional support systems for female caregivers. Psychiatric patient caregivers in particular face severe stigma, isolation and high levels of exhaustion and burden with no societal support. While medical caregivers experience only partial support structure.

These results highlight the urgent need for the intervention such as social support programs for caregivers and policy level initiatives that acknowledges the unseen burden carried by women caregivers in Indian society.

This systematic literature examines the relationship between organizational climate and occupational stress among female faculty in Indian Higher Education. The study also identifies workplace factors that increase stress and how organizational climate affects well-being of female faculty in higher education institutions. Research articles published from 2014 and 2025 were collected from Google Scholar, Semantic Scholar and PubMed. After screening the studies, 32 research papers were selected for the review. The findings showed that a negative organizational climate increases occupational stress among female faculty members. Major causes of stress included heavy workload, limited involvement in decision-making, poor recognition and problems in managing work-life balance. The review also found that female faculty working in supportive work environment experienced lower stress, better job satisfaction and stronger commitment to their institutions. Positive leadership, healthy workplace relationships and opportunities for professional growth helped improved overall well-being. Organizational Climate also plays an important role in how occupational stress is experienced by the faculty members. Thus, higher educational institutions should improve their organizational climate to reduce occupational stress and improve overall well-being, motivation and work performance of female faculty in India.

Introduction: Academic self-concept reflects students’ perceptions of their own abilities and competence, influencing confidence, engagement, and goal-directed behaviors. Academic procrastination, conversely, represents the tendency to delay academic tasks, which often undermines performance and increases stress. Objective: The primary objective of this research was to study the correlation between two sub scales of academic Self-concept and the Academic Procrastination among young females. The two subscales, also the two variables thus studied were academic confidence and academic effort.

Method: The study utilized Academic Self-concept Scale by Liu and Wang (2005) and Academic Procrastination Scale by McCloskey (2010) to collect responses from 100 young females currently studying in grade 12, under-graduation and post-graduation. These females were from 18 years to 25 years of age, and they were selected conveniently to use quantitative correlation research design. The respondents were approached personally, for them to fill out the questionnaires. The females, who were able to read, write and understand English and who gave their consent were selected to respond to the questionnaires. First hypothesis formulated was H1) There will be no significant correlation between Academic confidence (ACS) and Academic Procrastination (AP) among young females the second being, H2) There will be no significant correlation between Academic effort (ACS) and Academic Procrastination (AP) among young females.

Conclusion: According to the result, no significant difference was found between Academic Confidence (AC) and Academic Procrastination (AP) rendering the first hypothesis accepted at 0.43 level. The second hypothesis was also accepted at 0.36 level because no significant difference was found between academic effort and academic procrastination. While these results contrast with several studies in the literature that noted an inverse relationship—such as those by Rao et al. (2023) and Saha et al. (2024) but these results align closely with Bhati et al. (2024), who found no significant correlation between academic procrastination and academic performance in their study.