ATLANTA — Immigrants to the United States continue, on average, to work in jobs in which they are more likely to be injured or killed than U.S. natives, according to researchers at Agnes Scott College and the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. This result mirrors the most recent previous study, released in 1998, which also found that immigrants to the United States typically face more dangerous work conditions.
The newly released study, published in the August issue of the journal Demography, concludes that immigrants (including unauthorized immigrants) work in riskier jobs, as measured by injury and fatality rates, than U.S. natives. The paper was written by Madeline Zavodny, professor and chair of economics at Agnes Scott College, and Pia Orrenius, senior economist and research officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Researchers analyzed the most recent data, collected between 2003-2005, from the American Community Survey (ACS), a nation-wide survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, and reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) injuries, illnesses and fatalities (IIF) program. In the paper, U.S. natives are defined as people born in the United States or abroad to U.S. citizens, while immigrants are defined as people born outside of the United States — regardless of their visa or citizenship status.
According to the 2003-2005 figures, immigrants work in industries with a 40 percent higher fatality rate than U.S. natives, resulting in roughly 358 additional immigrant deaths per year. Compared with natives of similar education, age and sex, immigrants work in industries with 18 percent higher fatality rates.
Immigrants also work in industries with higher injury rates. Immigrants work in industries with a 6 percent higher injury rate than natives. This leads to more than 61,720 additional immigrants injured on the job each year.
The researchers found that education levels and language skills of immigrants affect their likelihood of being injured or killed on the job. Each factor limits job opportunities for immigrants, pushing them toward traditionally more dangerous careers in industries such as construction, agriculture and mining.
The study found that language skills play a key role in determining the risks immigrants face. Immigrants who spoke English fluently were more likely to hold safer jobs and were less likely to be injured or killed. A 2008 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention attributed the high number of work-related accidents among foreign-born Hispanics in part to inadequate knowledge of safety hazards and insufficient training, which are frequently exacerbated by language and literacy problems.
But even after researchers controlled for factors like race, education and language skills, the risk gap for immigrants remained.
“While language skills and education play an important role in additional injuries and deaths among immigrants, the discrepancy between rates for natives and immigrants with similar characteristics indicate that additional factors boost work-related risks for immigrant workers,” Zavodny said.
For instance, immigrants may have different perceptions or knowledge of job risks than U.S. natives. Because risks in their native country may be much higher on average than U.S. jobs, some immigrants may have a reduced perception of risk in certain jobs that natives may perceive as dangerous as compared to other U.S. jobs.
Immigrants also have less wealth on average than natives, possibly making immigrants more likely to trade better safety conditions for the higher wages offered in some risky occupations.
The findings overall raised several interesting questions going forward, according to Zavodny and Orrenius. While immigrants in the early 1990s did not have higher injury and fatality rates than natives according to previous studies, immigrants have continued to work in more dangerous conditions since the late 1990s. The researchers would like further research to determine why immigrants are being sorted into riskier jobs and whether immigrants are accepting riskier jobs due to lack of information.
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Agnes Scott College educates women to think deeply, live honorably and engage the intellectual and social challenges of their times. Students are drawn to Agnes Scott by its excellent academic reputation, exceptional faculty, and metropolitan Atlanta location – offering myriad cultural and experiential learning opportunities. A diverse and growing residential community of scholars, this highly selective liberal arts and sciences college is known for its dynamic and challenging intellectual community. Encouraging students to engage the wider world through study abroad and presenting its curriculum with international context, Agnes Scott College delivers on its promise: The World for Women.