ROLE OF EUROPEAN MOBILITY AND ITS IMPACTS IN NARRATIVES, DEBATES AND EU REFORMS

Immigration and the Reallocation of Work Health Risks

Immigration and the Reallocation of Work Health Risks

July 16, 2018

Working Paper

This working paper of work package 5 analyses how immigration may affect the reallocation of occupational physical burden (e.g. lifting and carrying heavy loads) and occupational health risks (i.e. injury risk) in the UK. Using data for England and Wales from the Labour Force Survey (2003-2013), the authors find that on average, immigration leads to a reallocation of UK-born workers towards jobs characterized by lower physical burden and injury risk. The results also show important differences across skill groups. Immigration reduces the average physical burden of UK-born workers with medium levels of education, but it has no significant effect on those with low levels. They also find that immigration led to an improvement of self-reported measures of native workers’ health.

The results suggest that immigration pushes UK-born workers towards jobs characterized by lower physical burden and injury risk. The authors also find that immigration reduced native’s likelihood to report work-related disability and any health problems. These findings, together with the evidence that immigrants exhibit lower injury rates than natives, suggest that the reallocation of tasks could reduce overall health care costs and the human and financial costs typically associated with workplace injuries

Latest Tweets

Our new webtool - https://t.co/gM93Z8B2A2 helps explain how intra-EU mobility happens, what its impacts are, and how and why it is discussed in national debates. Here's a piece about it. The things you never knew about free movement https://t.co/ey7wOFGaRp via @politics_co_uk

A nice piece about our project! Please share it far and wide. The things you never knew about free movement https://t.co/ey7wOFGaRp via @politics_co_uk

EU Migration. It's complex. This might help.. (and thanks to all our dedicated researchers)
https://t.co/prHOdAG9UN

Signup to our newsletter

Enter your email address to get the latest news direct to your inbox