We use cookies to provide you with the best possible website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site, as well as cookies used for anonymous statistics, comfort settings, or displaying personalized content. You can decide which categories you want to allow. Please note that depending on your settings, some features of the website may not be available.

Cookie settings

These necessary cookies are required to enable the core functionality of the website. Opting out of these cookies is not possible.

cb-enable
This cookie stores the user's cookie consent status for the current domain. Expiry: 1 year.
laravel_session
Stores the session ID to recognize the user when the page reloads and to restore their login session. Expiry: 2 hours.
XSRF-TOKEN
Provides CSRF protection for forms. Expiry: 2 hours.
IZA Discussion Paper No. 12510
July 2019
Immigration and Work-Related Injuries: Evidence from Italian Administrative Data
Caterina Alacevich, Catia Nicodemo

published as 'The Effect of Immigration on Occupational Injuries: Evidence from Administrative Data' in: Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 2024, 86 (2), 209-235

There is growing evidence that foreign-born workers are over represented in physically demanding and dangerous jobs with relatively higher injury hazard rates. Given this pattern, do increasing inflows of foreign-born workers alleviate native workers' exposure to injuries? This paper provides evidence of the effects of immigration on the incidence and severity of workrelated accidents. We combine administrative data on work-place accidents in Italy with the Labour Force Survey from 2009 to 2017. Our approach exploits spatial and temporal variation in the distribution of foreign-born residents across provinces. Using province fixed-effects and an instrumental variable specification based on historical settlements of immigrants, we show that inflows of foreign-born residents drive reductions in the injury rate, paid sick leave, and severity of impairment for natives. Next, we investigate potential underlying mechanisms that could drive this effect, such as increased unemployment and selection of the workforce, and the sorting of native workers into less physically demanding jobs. Our results rule out that decreased injuries are driven by higher native unemployment. We find that employment rates are positively associated with immigration, in particular for workers with higher education. While not statistically significant at conventional levels, we also find that average occupational physical intensity for natives is lower in provinces that receive larger foreign-born inflows.

Kommunikation
Mark Fallak
mark.fallak@liser.lu
+352 585-855-526
World of Labour
Olga Nottmeyer
olga.nottmeyer@liser.lu
+352 585-855-501
Netzwerkkoordination
Christina Gathmann
christina.gathmann@liser.lu

Das IZA@LISER-Netzwerk ist eine weltweite Gemeinschaft für exzellente Forschung in der Arbeitsmarktökonomie und angrenzenden Fachgebieten. Nach dem Wechsel von Bonn wird das Netzwerk nun am Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) koordiniert.

Über das IZA@LISER Network
Contact
IZA Network (Current Site Operator):

Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER)
11, Porte des Sciences
Maison des Sciences Humaines
L-4366 Esch-sur-Alzette / Belval, Luxembourg

IZA Institute (In Liquidation):

Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH i. L.
Schaumburg-Lippe-Str. 5-9, 53113 Bonn. Germany
Phone: +49 228 3894-0 | Fax: +49 228 3894-510
E-Mail: info@iza.org | Web: www.iza.org
Represented by: Martin T. Clemens (Liquidator)