Covid-19 deaths among migrant care workers: risks and responses

The Economic and Social Research Council has awarded Professor Nicola Yeates £80,000 to run a project which focuses attention on the place of migrants in health and care workforces during the pandemic. It will generate robust social-scientific data on the impact of Covid-19 on migrant members of the global health care workforce and on collective responses to pressures on healthcare workforces globally since 2020.

Migrant workers are of substantial and growing significance in many countries’ health and social care systems and are key to realising the global goal of universal health care. There is a paucity of robust evidence about whether migrant health and social care workers have the same level of exposure to Covid-19 infection and deaths as their non-migrant colleagues, whether variations exist between sectors (as between social and health care) and countries, as well as what responses have emerged in the face of threats to the resilience of health workforces. This project aims to start to fill this gap.

This project responds to a demand by multiple partners for stronger evidence on the risks of Covid-19 infection and death among migrant health and care workers. It also responds to the need for better tracking of collective responses to pressures on health and social care workforces internationally. Charting these risks, pressures and responses can inform advocacy initiatives on migrants’ rights to safe workplaces and decent working conditions, as well as measures to strengthen the health and care workforce in a manner consistent with international recruitment, employment and safety norms. We will share our research findings with a wide range of social and policy actors.