Labor migration and health

Research Group “Reducing EMployment-related HEalth DIsparities for Migrant Workers” (REMEDI)

The Research Group REMEDI is led by Dr. Nora Gottlieb and examines questions at the intersection of migration, work, and health inequities; e.g.

• What causes high rates of work-related injuries and illnesses among migrant workers?
• What are the long-term health impacts of work precarity among migrants?
• What are migrant workers’ priorities and trade-offs as regards social and health protection?
• “What works” to address occupational health inequities for migrants?

Employment and working conditions are important social determinants of health. This is particularly true for migrants, who are overrepresented in precarious employment and high-risk jobs. Migrant workers sustain various industries that serve our daily needs, such as agriculture, food production, hospitality, logistics, delivery, care work, and construction. Still, they often remain invisible, and evidence on their work-related health inequities is limited.

Our research group addresses the current knowledge gaps on migrant worker health through

- action-oriented research, done in partnership across academic disciplines, sectors, and country contexts (e.g., with NGOs and transdisciplinary networks), and using existing data sets (such as SOEP) as well as newly generated qualitative and quantitative data.
- conceptual and methodological development; e.g., adapting instruments for the assessment of worker wellbeing to migration contexts, developing an intersectional approach to analysing migrant workers’ social and health inequities, applying a Commercial Determinants of Health framework to worker wellbeing, and integrating migration into conceptual models on work precarity and health inequities.

We generate tools and evidence to promote better social and health protection for precarious and migrant workers.

If you are interested in our work, you are warmly invited to reach out to nora.gottlieb@uni-bielefeld.de

 

Ongoing projects:

DignityFIRM: Academic and practice partners from eight countries (Belgium, Germany, Italy, Morocco, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Ukraine) collaborate to examine the structural conditions of migrant workers in Europe’s farm-to-fork sectors. The German case study focuses on migrant labor in the meat industry, particularly a 2020 legal reform that shifted workers from subcontracted to direct employment. It explores the conditions enabling this change and its impact on workers. DignityFIRM uses participatory and creative methods, alongside academic dissemination, to influence policies in the areas of social rights, labor markets, agricultural policy, and immigration.

Migration, work, and chronic disease: To understand how migration and work intersect with other identity markers and social determinants of health (such as SES, gender, migration trajectory, racialization) and shape health outcomes, we use SOEP data to examine associations between migration, work, and particular chronic conditions (with Dr. Louise Biddle, DIW).