The value of immigrants for the UK has played an important role in the Brexit debate. A recent GLO Discussion Paper explores the effects of immigration on the allocation of occupational physical burden and work injury risk using data for England and Wales.
Migrants seem to reduce the risks for UK-born workers and they report report lower injury rates than natives. The paper is now published in the Journal of Population Economics and available online. See also below.

GLO Discussion Paper now published in the Journal of Population Economics, July 2019, Volume 32, Issue 3, pp 1009–1042; already 2.4k downloads on July 5, 2019! OPEN ACCESS….

See online on the Journal website.

Download PDF of the Journal of Population Economics article for free.

GLO Discussion Paper No. 215, 2018.

Immigration and the Reallocation of Work Health Risks – Download PDF
by Giuntella, Osea & Mazzonna, Fabrizio & Nicodemo, Catia & Vargas-Silva, Carlos

GLO Fellows Osea Giuntella, Fabrizio Mazzonna, Catia Nicodemo & Carlos Vargas-Silva

Author Abstract: This paper studies the effects of immigration on the allocation of occupational physical burden and work injury risks. Using data for England and Wales from the Labour Force Survey (2003–2013), we find that, on average, immigration leads to a reallocation of UK-born workers towards jobs characterized by lower physical burden and injury risk. The results also show important differences across skill groups. Immigration reduces the average physical burden of UK-born workers with medium levels of education, but has no significant effect on those with low levels. We also find that that immigration led to an improvement self-reported measures of native workers’ health. These findings, together with the evidence that immigrants report lower injury rates than natives, suggest that the reallocation of tasks could reduce overall health care costs and the human and financial costs typically associated with workplace injuries.

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