[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/feddwp/0901.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do immigrants work in riskier jobs?

Author

Abstract
Recent media and government reports suggest that immigrants are more likely to hold jobs with worse working conditions than U.S.-born workers, perhaps because immigrants work in jobs that \"natives don?t want.\" Despite this widespread view, earlier studies have not found immigrants to be in riskier jobs than natives. This study combines individual-level data from the 2003-2005 American Community Survey with Bureau of Labor Statistics data on work-related injuries and fatalities to take a fresh look at whether foreign-born workers are employed in more dangerous jobs. The results indicate that immigrants are in fact more likely to work in risky jobs than U.S.-born workers, partly due to differences in average characteristics, such as immigrants' lower English language ability and educational attainment.

Suggested Citation

  • Pia M. Orrenius & Madeline Zavodny, 2009. "Do immigrants work in riskier jobs?," Working Papers 0901, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:feddwp:0901
    Note: Published as: Orrenius, Pia M. and Madeline Zavodny (2009), "Do Immigrants Work in Riskier Jobs?," Demography 46 (3): 535-551.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.dallasfed.org/~/media/documents/research/papers/2009/wp0901.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Scherzer, T. & Rugulies, R. & Krause, N., 2005. "Work-related pain and injury and barriers to workers' compensation among Las Vegas hotel room cleaners," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 95(3), pages 483-488.
    2. George J. Borjas, 2021. "Assimilation, Changes in Cohort Quality, and the Earnings of Immigrants," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foundational Essays in Immigration Economics, chapter 2, pages 3-29, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    3. repec:bla:econom:v:63:y:1996:i:250:p:291-309 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Deborah A. Cobb‐Clark & Vincent A. Hildebrand, 2006. "The Wealth And Asset Holdings Of U.S.‐Born And Foreign‐Born Households: Evidence From Sipp Data," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 52(1), pages 17-42, March.
    5. Gordon H. Hanson, 2006. "Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(4), pages 869-924, December.
    6. Holger Bonin & Amelie Constant & Konstantinos Tatsiramos & Klaus Zimmermann, 2012. "Ethnic persistence, assimilation and risk proclivity," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-16, December.
    7. Azaroff, L.S. & Levenstein, C. & Wegman, D.H., 2002. "Occupational injury and illness surveillance: Conceptual filters explain underreporting," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 92(9), pages 1421-1429.
    8. Holger Bonin & Amelie Constant & Konstantinos Tatsiramos & Klaus Zimmermann, 2009. "Native-migrant differences in risk attitudes," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(15), pages 1581-1586.
    9. Viscusi, W Kip, 1993. "The Value of Risks to Life and Health," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 31(4), pages 1912-1946, December.
    10. Heather Antecol & Kelly Bedard, 2006. "Unhealthy assimilation: Why do immigrants converge to American health status levels?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 43(2), pages 337-360, May.
    11. Viscusi, W Kip, 1978. "Wealth Effects and Earnings Premiums for Job Hazards," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 60(3), pages 408-416, August.
    12. Frank Bean & B. Lowell & Lowell Taylor, 1988. "Undocumented Mexican immigrants and the earnings of other workers in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 25(1), pages 35-52, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pia M. Orrenius & Madeline Zavodny, 2013. "Immigrants in risky occupations," Chapters, in: Amelie F. Constant & Klaus F. Zimmermann (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Migration, chapter 11, pages 214-226, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Graziella Bertocchi & Marianna Brunetti & Anzelika Zaiceva, 2023. "The Financial Decisions of Immigrant and Native Households: Evidence from Italy," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 9(1), pages 117-174, March.
    3. Amelie F. Constant & Klaus F. Zimmermann, 2011. "Migration, Ethnicity and Economic Integration," Chapters, in: Miroslav N. Jovanović (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Integration, Volume III, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Hildebrand, Vincent A., 2008. "The Asset Portfolios of Native-Born and Foreign-Born Households," IZA Discussion Papers 3304, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Madeline Zavodny, 2015. "Do Immigrants Work in Worse Jobs than U.S. Natives? Evidence from California," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 276-293, April.
    6. Nikolaos Georgantzis & Efi Vasileiou, 2014. "Are Dangerous Jobs Paid Better? European Evidence," Research in Labor Economics, in: New Analyses of Worker Well-Being, volume 38, pages 163-192, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    7. Susan L. Averett & Laura M. Argys & Jennifer L. Kohn, 2013. "Immigrants, wages and obesity: the weight of the evidence," Chapters, in: Amelie F. Constant & Klaus F. Zimmermann (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Migration, chapter 13, pages 242-256, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Luciana Méndez Errico, 2013. "The Impacts of Social Networks on Immigrants’ Employment Prospects: The Spanish Case 1997-2007," Working Papers wpdea1301, Department of Applied Economics at Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona.
    9. D’Ambrosio, Anna & Leombruni, Roberto & Razzolini, Tiziano, 2017. "Native-Migrant Differences in Trading Off Wages and Workplace Safety," IZA Discussion Papers 10523, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Mathias Sinning, 2010. "Homeownership and Economic Performance of Immigrants in Germany," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 47(2), pages 387-409, February.
    11. Osea Giuntella & Luca Stella, 2017. "The Acceleration of Immigrant Unhealthy Assimilation," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(4), pages 511-518, April.
    12. repec:zbw:rwidps:0045 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Catia Batista & Janis Umblijs, 2014. "Migration, risk attitudes, and entrepreneurship: evidence from a representative immigrant survey," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-25, December.
    14. Liam Delaney & Alan Fernihough & James Smith, 2013. "Exporting Poor Health: The Irish in England," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(6), pages 2013-2035, December.
    15. Barbieri, Paolo Nicola, 2016. "The heterogeneity in immigrants unhealthy assimilation," MPRA Paper 71560, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Adriana Barone & Annamaria Nese, 2003. "On the Job Health Risks: Workers' Beliefs and Individual Work Experiences," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 62(1), pages 125-144, April.
    17. Nelly Elmallakh & Jackline Wahba, 2022. "Return migrants and the wage premium: does the legal status of migrants matter?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(4), pages 1631-1685, October.
    18. Biavaschi, Costanza, 2016. "Recovering the counterfactual wage distribution with selective return migration," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 59-80.
    19. Swarnankur Chatterjee & Velma Zahirovic-Herbert, 2014. "A road to assimilation: immigrants and financial markets," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 38(2), pages 345-358, April.
    20. Sumit S. Deole & Marc Oliver Rieger, 2023. "The immigrant-native gap in risk and time preferences in Germany: levels, socio-economic determinants, and recent changes," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(2), pages 743-778, April.
    21. Carl Lin, 2013. "Earnings Gap, Cohort Effect and Economic Assimilation of Immigrants from Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan in the United States," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(2), pages 249-265, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Immigrants; Human capital; Labor economics;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:feddwp:0901. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Amy Chapman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbdaus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.