Immigrant Women and the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Intersectional Analysis of Frontline Occupational Crowding in the United States

Abstract

This paper examines changes in occupational crowding of immigrant women in frontline industries in the United States during the onset of COVID-19, and we contextualize their experiences against the backdrop of broader race-based and gender-based occupational crowding. Building on the occupational crowding hypothesis, which suggests that marginalized workers are crowded in a small number of occupations to prop up wages of socially-privileged workers, we hypothesize that immigrant, Black, and Hispanic workers were shunted into frontline work to prop up the health of others during the pandemic. Our analysis of American Community Survey microdata indicates that immigrant workers, particularly immigrant women, were increasingly crowded in frontline work during the onset of the pandemic. We also find that US-born Black and Hispanic workers disproportionately faced COVID-19 exposure in their work, but were not increasingly crowded into frontline occupations following the onset of the pandemic. The paper also provides a rationale for considering the occupational crowding hypothesis along the dimensions of both wages and occupational health.

Keywords:

• Occupational crowding
• feminist economics
• stratification economics
• occupational segregation
• immigrant labor

JEL CODES:

• B54
• J20
• J61
• J71

Notes

1 Information on visa status is not included in the ACS or CPS.

2 These categories include the following industries (and their corresponding 2020+ Census Bureau Industry codes): Grocery and related product merchant wholesalers (4470), Supermarkets and other grocery stores (4971), Convenience stores (4972), Pharmacies and drug stores (5070), and General merchandise stores, including warehouse clubs and supercenters (5391). Rail transportation (6080) and Bus service and urban transit (6180). Truck transportation (6170), Warehousing and storage (6390), and Postal service (6370). Cleaning services to buildings and dwellings (7690). Offices of physicians (7970), Outpatient care centers (8090), Home health care services (8170), Other health care services (8180), General medical and surgical hospitals, and specialty hospitals (8191), Psychiatric and substance abuse hospitals (8192), Nursing care facilities (skilled nursing facilities) (8270), and Residential care facilities, except skilled nursing facilities (8290). Individual and family services (8370), Community food and housing, and emergency services (8380), and Child day care services (8470).

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded in part by the Black Bodies Black Health Research Grant from the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice at Rutgers University. We thank Debra Lancaster, Michelle Stephens, and Enobong (Anna) Branch for their helpful comments and suggestions.