2009) Do Immigrants Work in Riskier Jobs

Recent media and government reports suggest that immigrants are more likely to hold jobs with poor 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. tylized facts suggest that the foreign-born are more likely to work in risky jobs than natives.1 For example, immigrants are disproportionately employed in agriculture and con-struction, sectors with relatively high injury and fatality levels. Moreover, immigrants may be in riskier jobs or perform riskier tasks than natives within those sectors. Anecdotal evi-dence supports this possibility. For example, 21 of 29 fatal construction accidents in New York City during a recent 12-month period involved workers who were immigrants or had limited English profi ciency (Chan 2006). Studies of immigrants doing reconstruction work in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina suggest that large numbers of both documented and undocumented foreign-born workers were exposed to dangerous substances and con-ditions (Fletcher et al. 2006). Nationally, the proportion of work-related fatalities among foreign-born Hispanic workers rose between 1992 and 2006 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] 2008), and fatal work injuries among foreign-born Hispanic workers reached a series high in 2005 (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2006), making this issue a press-ing public policy concern. This study therefore examines whether immigrants are indeed more likely than natives to work in risky jobs, as measured by industry and occupation injury and fatality rates, and investigates the causes of any such differences