Abstract
BackgroundIt is known that occupational injury rates are higher for immigrant than for native workers, however the effects of the economic cycles on these differences has not been assessed to date. The aim of the paper is to test if the crisis has the same mechanism of selection in the two groups by comparing injury rates in 2005 (before the crisis) and in 2010 (after the crisis).MethodsThe Work History Italian Panel-Salute integrated database was interrogated to identify employment contracts in the metalworking and construction industries for the years 2005 and 2010 and the occupational injuries. A definition based on the type of injury, less likely to be biased by underreporting, was used to select serious events. Immigrants and natives were matched using the propensity score method and injury rates were calculated in the two years. Analyses were stratified by industry.ResultsIn the metalworking industry injury rates slightly increased over time for both groups, and were higher among immigrant than native workers in both 2005 and 2010. In the construction industry the 2005 injury rate was the same in the two groups, and there was a negative trend over time in both groups. However the decline in the 2010 injury rate for Italian workers was much larger, which led to a considerable increase of the incidence rate ratio of immigrants with respect to native (IRR 3.83, 95% CI 2.52–5.75).ConclusionsThe economic recession had an impact on the risk of workplace injury. Though the main observed factors (18 variables) usually reported in literature to explain the higher injury rates of the immigrant workers were controlled through the matching, there were still differences between immigrants and natives. The main reason is that immigrants continue to be assigned to the more dangerous jobs and the more dangerous tasks within these job. Furthermore, also differences in the perception of workplace injury risks, linguistic barriers, and cultural factors may have a role in explaining this gap.
Highlights
It is known that occupational injury rates are higher for immigrant than for native workers, the effects of the economic cycles on these differences has not been assessed to date
We studied the hypothesis that economic crisis had the same mechanisms of selection among SMPC workers and HIC workers and that, taking into account the main factors that could be associated with health and employment conditions, the differential in injury rates between the two groups would tend to disappear from before to after the recession
The first is that, regardless of the level in 2005, in 2010 HIC workers are protected with respect to SMPC workers in terms of injury rates, in both metalworking and construction industry
Summary
It is known that occupational injury rates are higher for immigrant than for native workers, the effects of the economic cycles on these differences has not been assessed to date. The risk of total and fatal occupational injury is generally higher for immigrant than for native workers, some study results are discordant [1, 2]. The higher injury rates among immigrant workers in Italy differ in the relative risk depending on worker nationality and economic sector [3]. Immigrant workers are more often employed by small firms where the risk of fatal and serious workplace accidents is higher than in large companies [5]. As in many highly developed countries, [7] so too in Italy immigrant workers are more frequently employed under fixed-term contracts [8]
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