Absence Due to Sickness Among Female Immigrants: Disadvantages Over the Career?

Abstract

The extent to which and where immigrants’ health may deteriorate in the integration process is less understood. This study extends the current knowl- edge by focusing on sickness absence in Norway among female immigrants working within eight occupations where few formal skills are required. Administrative register data with a total sample of 261,291 native women and 9251 female refugees or families reunited are used to examine the native- immigrant gap in absence due to sickness during a 10-year period. The main findings are that female immigrants are less likely to have at least one sick- ness absence spell compared to natives, and that the native-immigrant gap in sickness absence was rather stabile when the number of years worked in these occupations was considered. This study shows that immigrants fol- low the same pattern as natives and suggests that the native-immigrant gap in absence due to health should be nuanced and focus more on why several years in these occupations increase the probability of sickness absence, inde- pendent of country of origin.