Abstract
Recent occupational injury data shows a rising trend, which happens to coincide with both increases in the foreign-born population in the U.S. and changes in its composition. This study aims to explore the presence of a statistical relationship between occupational injuries and the level of English proficiency of foreign-born using cross-sectional data on the rate of injury and count of injury incidents. A cultural gap hypothesis is also examined as an alternative explanation for the rise in work injuries. While there is some support for the adverse effect of inadequate English language proficiency of foreign-born, the results for the cultural gap hypothesis are more robust.
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Notes
Orrenius and Zavodny (2009) argue that the observed high rate of occupational injuries and fatalities among immigrants is because they tend to accept more risky jobs. Their analysis of 2003–2005 data finds educational attainment and English language proficiency as contributing factors. While the authors acknowledge the multicollinearity between educational attainment and English proficiency, their model suffers from an omitted variable problem because it ignores compensation differentials, such as wage rate, as an important explanatory variable in the choice of risky occupations or industries. English proficiency is also used in a study by Chowdhury and Pedace (2007), which deals with ethnic enclaves and the labor market. The authors find a negative effect of ethnic concentration on earning in California, but the effect of English proficiency on immigrants’ income varies by type of ethnicity. The presence of a large foreign-born population may have reduced the negative effect of English proficiency because of the larger number of foreign-born businesses in California. When English proficiency of foreign-born improves, they are likely to move out of ethnic enclaves. Edin et al. (2003), on the other hand, finds a positive, “warm support,” effect of ethnic enclaves and wages in Sweden.
States that have decided not to participate in the survey include Colorado, Idaho, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota. For more information on the history of BLS safety and health statistics programs, including the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, visit www.bls.gov/iif/oshhist.htm.
The selected high risk industries include non-metallic mineral mining and quarrying, taxi and limousine service, metal ore mining, truck transportation, non-specified type of mining, sawmills and wood preservation, non-specified food industries, leather tanning and products (except footwear), sewage treatment facilities, and automobile dealers.
Percentage of wages was considered as an alternative to the maximum weekly workers’ compensation by the state. Since the rate is rather constant across states— typically 66.67% of the gross earning, or 80% of the after tax earning—maximum compensation was selected instead.
The issue of whether attitude towards risk varies between subgroups of population such as male vs. female, or immigrants vs. natives, has been addressed in several studies in the past with no consistent results (Hartog et al. 2002; Harrison, et al. 2004; Bonin et al. 2006; 2007; Berkhout et al. 2010). While a positive correlation between foreign-born workers and fatal accidents has been observed in a few studies, it is not clear whether the high fatality rates are due to the concentration of foreign-born workers in high-risk occupations or attitude towards risk. For example, Hersch and Viscusi (2009) believe that immigrants from Mexico, in particular face higher risk of fatal accidents and, because of labor market inefficiencies, are not sufficiently compensated for the higher risk. Loh and Richardson (2004) hold that the combination of low educational attainment and lack of English proficiency places foreign-born workers in low paying, high-risk jobs.
Because of lack of data, the effect of age could not be controlled by experience here.
When both English proficiency and foreign-born workers are included in the same model (not reported here), both variables lose statistical significance due to multicollinearity (correlation coefficient 0.91), while they carry the expected signs. However, the interaction variable between the two is statistically highly significant.
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Acknowledgement
I am grateful for the helpful comments made by Brooks Pierce of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and by participants of my session at the 2008 Western Economic Association International meetings in Honolulu. All remaining errors are mine. The opinion expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of NOAA.
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Marvasti, A. Occupational Safety and English Language Proficiency. J Labor Res 31, 332–347 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12122-010-9096-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12122-010-9096-z