IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ecoind/v9y1988i1p43-64.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Structural Discrimination Against Foreigners and Work-related

Author

Listed:
  • Health Risks
  • Maria Oppen

    (Wissenschafszentrum Berlin for Sozialforschung)

Abstract

During the last decade it has become obvious that the health status of migrant workers is decreasing dramatically despite thorough medical examinations in their home countries. The debate on this problem usually refers to factors such as 'migration strain', 'lack or unwillingness to integrate' or 'cultural distance', which are said to be the causes of the poor health condition. On the contrary, the thesis is presented here that the discriminating working (and living) conditions of migrant workers in the FRG lead to a higher level of illness episodes of this group in comparison to the German workforce. The structure of the migrant workforce is characterized by a certain allocation to unskilled jobs with lower qualification and income levels, higher physical and psychosocial workload and high rates of unemployment, which is considered as an additional health risk. This leads to the conclusion that we will have to deal with increasing health problems and resulting costs unless migrant policies lead to more structural integration. According to this aim, legal rights should be set up for security of residence and equal opportunities on the labour market for migrant workers. These are prerequisite to active participation in work and personal efforts towards integration.

Suggested Citation

  • Health Risks & Maria Oppen, 1988. "Structural Discrimination Against Foreigners and Work-related," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 9(1), pages 43-64, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:9:y:1988:i:1:p:43-64
    DOI: 10.1177/0143831X8891003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0143831X8891003
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0143831X8891003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:9:y:1988:i:1:p:43-64. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ekhist.uu.se/english.htm .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.