Do Immigrants Shield the Locals? Exposure to COVID-Related Risks in the European Union

This paper investigates the relationship between immigration and the exposure of native workers to the health and labor-market risks arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Using various measures of occupational risks based on European Union labor force survey data, the paper finds that immigrant worker...

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Main Authors:	Bossavie, Laurent, Garrote Sanchez, Daniel, Makovec, Mattia, Ozden, Caglar
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2020
Subjects:	IMMIGRANT LABOR MIGRATION MIGRANT WORKER LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY LABOR MARKET OCCUPATIONAL CHOICE CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 PANDEMIC IMPACT
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/634461608129241833/Do-Immigrants-Push-Natives-towards-Safer-Jobs-Exposure-to-COVID-19-in-the-European-Union http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34944

id	okr-10986-34944
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-349442022-09-20T00:10:40Z Do Immigrants Shield the Locals? Exposure to COVID-Related Risks in the European Union Bossavie, Laurent Garrote Sanchez, Daniel Makovec, Mattia Ozden, Caglar IMMIGRANT LABOR MIGRATION MIGRANT WORKER LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY LABOR MARKET OCCUPATIONAL CHOICE CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 PANDEMIC IMPACT This paper investigates the relationship between immigration and the exposure of native workers to the health and labor-market risks arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Using various measures of occupational risks based on European Union labor force survey data, the paper finds that immigrant workers, especially those from lower-income member countries in Eastern Europe or from outside the EU, face greater exposure than their native-born peers to both income and health-shocks related to COVID-19. The paper also shows that native workers living in regions with a higher concentration of immigrants are less exposed to some of the income and health risks associated with the pandemic. To assess whether this relationship is causal, a Bartik-type shift-share instrument is used to control for potential bias and unobservable factors that would lead migrants to self-select into more vulnerable occupations across regions. The results show that the presence of immigrant workers has a causal effect in reducing the exposure of native workers to various risks by enabling the native-born workers to move into jobs that could be undertaken from the safety of their homes or with lower face-to-face interactions. The effects on the native-born population are more pronounced for high-skilled workers than for low-skilled workers, and for women than for men. The paper does not find a significant effect of immigration on wages and employment — indicating that the effects are mostly driven by a reallocation of natives from less safe jobs to safer jobs. 2020-12-17T15:41:32Z 2020-12-17T15:41:32Z 2020-12 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/634461608129241833/Do-Immigrants-Push-Natives-towards-Safer-Jobs-Exposure-to-COVID-19-in-the-European-Union http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34944 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9500 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Europe and Central Asia European Union
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	IMMIGRANT LABOR MIGRATION MIGRANT WORKER LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY LABOR MARKET OCCUPATIONAL CHOICE CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 PANDEMIC IMPACT
spellingShingle	IMMIGRANT LABOR MIGRATION MIGRANT WORKER LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY LABOR MARKET OCCUPATIONAL CHOICE CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 PANDEMIC IMPACT Bossavie, Laurent Garrote Sanchez, Daniel Makovec, Mattia Ozden, Caglar Do Immigrants Shield the Locals? Exposure to COVID-Related Risks in the European Union
geographic_facet	Europe and Central Asia European Union
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9500
description	This paper investigates the relationship between immigration and the exposure of native workers to the health and labor-market risks arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Using various measures of occupational risks based on European Union labor force survey data, the paper finds that immigrant workers, especially those from lower-income member countries in Eastern Europe or from outside the EU, face greater exposure than their native-born peers to both income and health-shocks related to COVID-19. The paper also shows that native workers living in regions with a higher concentration of immigrants are less exposed to some of the income and health risks associated with the pandemic. To assess whether this relationship is causal, a Bartik-type shift-share instrument is used to control for potential bias and unobservable factors that would lead migrants to self-select into more vulnerable occupations across regions. The results show that the presence of immigrant workers has a causal effect in reducing the exposure of native workers to various risks by enabling the native-born workers to move into jobs that could be undertaken from the safety of their homes or with lower face-to-face interactions. The effects on the native-born population are more pronounced for high-skilled workers than for low-skilled workers, and for women than for men. The paper does not find a significant effect of immigration on wages and employment — indicating that the effects are mostly driven by a reallocation of natives from less safe jobs to safer jobs.
format	Working Paper
author	Bossavie, Laurent Garrote Sanchez, Daniel Makovec, Mattia Ozden, Caglar
author_facet	Bossavie, Laurent Garrote Sanchez, Daniel Makovec, Mattia Ozden, Caglar
author_sort	Bossavie, Laurent
title	Do Immigrants Shield the Locals? Exposure to COVID-Related Risks in the European Union
title_short	Do Immigrants Shield the Locals? Exposure to COVID-Related Risks in the European Union
title_full	Do Immigrants Shield the Locals? Exposure to COVID-Related Risks in the European Union
title_fullStr	Do Immigrants Shield the Locals? Exposure to COVID-Related Risks in the European Union
title_full_unstemmed	Do Immigrants Shield the Locals? Exposure to COVID-Related Risks in the European Union
title_sort	do immigrants shield the locals? exposure to covid-related risks in the european union
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2020
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/634461608129241833/Do-Immigrants-Push-Natives-towards-Safer-Jobs-Exposure-to-COVID-19-in-the-European-Union http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34944
_version_	1764481987067772928

Do Immigrants Shield the Locals? Exposure to COVID-Related Risks in the European Union

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