A descriptive study on immigrant workers in the elderly care sector

Abstract

The present descriptive study seeks to explore the differences in terms of psychosocial work characteristics and health & well-being indicators among Danes, Western and Non-western immigrants working in the elderly care sector; and to identify differences in the association patterns between these psychosocial work characteristics and health & well-being across these three groups. The study was based on a large-scale survey of the elderly care sector in Denmark with 78% response rate. Results show that Non-western immigrants had more depression symptoms, poorer quality of sleep and more client-related burnout than their Western immigrants and Danish colleagues. All in all, the associations between psychosocial work characteristics and health and well-being were much stronger among Danes than among immigrant workers and particularly weak among Non-western immigrants.