Health, Safety and Well-being of Migrant Workers: New Hazards, New Workers

Book excerpt: This volume explores psychosocial problems amongst one of the most vulnerable social groups in our societies, immigrant workers, through a multidisciplinary approach. Migration has sometimes been oversimplified as a flow of workers from “poorer”, developing nations to “wealthier”, industrialised nations. The issue, however, is more complex and currently migration is a global phenomenon in which all countries are recipients of workers from third countries and send workers to third countries. The working conditions of immigrant workers at various levels are not always well known, though some studies have established that the negative impact on migrant workers is cumulative, and primarily stems from adverse living and working conditions in a new country and increased levels of vulnerability. The contributions to this volume cover discussions on migrant workers in the industrial, agricultural and service sectors across the world. They critically study the impact of work Hazards on the health and wellbeing of migrant workers in order to shed light on the social and health implications of migrant work, explore the relation between organizational, psychosocial and work factors, and analyse the migration process from a wider perspective and as a global phenomenon present in every country. The contributors provide multidisciplinary and multicultural contemporary perspectives, thereby providing readers with wide-ranging insights. This volume is of interest to researchers and students from the social and behavioural sciences, particularly those focusing on health studies and migration studies.