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. 2022 Jul 14;19(14):8574.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph19148574.

Understanding Migrant Farmworkers' Health and Well-Being during the Global COVID-19 Pandemic in Canada: Toward a Transnational Conceptualization of Employment Strain

Leah F Vosko  1 , Tanya Basok  2 , Cynthia Spring  1 , Guillermo Candiz  3 , Glynis George  2
Affiliations

Understanding Migrant Farmworkers' Health and Well-Being during the Global COVID-19 Pandemic in Canada: Toward a Transnational Conceptualization of Employment Strain

Leah F Vosko et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada imposed certain international travel bans and work-from-home orders, yet migrant farmworkers, declared essential to national food security, were exempt from such measures. In this context, farm worksites proved to be particularly prone to COVID-19 outbreaks. To apprehend this trend, we engaged an expanded and transnational employment strain framework that identified the employment demands and resources understood from a transnational perspective, as well as the immigration, labour, and public health policies and practices contributing to and/or buffering employment demands during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. We applied mixed methods to analyze administrative data, immigration, labour, and public health policy, as well as qualitative interviews with thirty migrant farmworkers employed in Ontario and Quebec. We concluded that the deleterious outcomes of the pandemic for this group were rooted in the deplorable pre-pandemic conditions they endured. Consequently, the band-aid solutions adopted by federal and provincial governments to address these conditions before and during the pandemic were limited in their efficacy because they failed to account for the transnational employment strains among precarious status workers labouring on temporary employer-tied work permits. Such findings underscore the need for transformative policies to better support health equity among migrant farmworkers in Canada.

Keywords: COVID-19; Canada; employment strain; health and well-being; migrant farmworkers; precarious status; temporary labour migration; transnational lives; work.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Job strain among (national) citizen-workers engaged in full-time permanent ongoing employment.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Transnational employment strain among workers both with various residency statuses and engaged in diverse employment relationships.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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