Background:
Working is regarded as one of the major things that guide individual life and, because of the vitality of work in the daily life of individuals; work must be understood across economic, cultural and social spheres. By engaging in one form of works, people earn means of support, establish their identities, perceive life as meaningful and establish social network with others [1]. Despite the fact that work is vital for life and health, the organizational pattern, mode of operation and the related factors have reportedly caused numerous diseases among workers [1,2]. Psychosocial factors arising from the interaction between work description, content, work organization, working condition, level of technological advancement and the workers’ level of competence, needs, resources and other personal factors all exert untold effects on the workers’ wellbeing and quality of life [3,4].
Quality of Life according to World Health Organization (WHO) is seen as an “individual’s perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns”[5, 6]. This therefore involves four main areas of work life: safety at work; employee health care; adequate working time; and a commensurate salary [7, 8]. Individual worker perceives high quality of life when he has positive feelings towards his work and its prospect, and hence motivated to stay on the job and commit to its performance [9].
The quality of life is a product of several factors inherent in the work environment [10]. The performance of the employees at various work positions is intricately related to the set of factors affecting workers’ health, well-being, habits, work environment and quality of life. Moreover, quality of life is also reported to be significantly associated with employees’ job satisfaction, high moral, output at work, level of wellness, job security and safety at work [11] and varies across occupation, occupational disorders and socio-demographic characteristics [8,12, 13, 14, 15, 16] .
Quarry industries are one of the important industries across the world serving as major sources of raw materials for key developmental strides in the society [17]. According to British Geological Survey [18] quarry work is second to agriculture as the major sources of employment mostly in rural areas with the products exported to the developed areas as finished products. It accounts for over 40 million Euros economic growth across countries [19]. Over 20 million workers earn living from quarry industries in developing countries [20,21].
Despite the above enormous contributions, quarry works have been characterized by poor technological involvement and use of human being in place of automation [19, 22]. Poor condition of work, lack of job security and low monthly earning were also common among quarry workers in developing countries where quarry industries are mostly located for want of low cost for labour [19]. It has also been reported as the riskiest job across occupations with various occupational disorders [23,24,25]. Assessment of quality of life is a vital managerial tool to map out preventive measures for health deviations as a result of work activities and formulation of policies for safety at work [26]. This study therefore assessed the quality of life and the associated factors among quarry workers in Nigeria.