ORIGINAL PAPER A Descriptive Study on Immigrant Workers in the Elderly Care Sector Adriana Ortega Æ Isabella Gomes Carneiro Æ Mari-Ann Flyvholm Published online: 16 May 2009 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009 Abstract The present descriptive study seeks to explore the differences in terms of psychosocial work characteris- tics 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. Keywords Immigrants Á Elderly care Á Psychosocial work environment Á Health and well-being Introduction The population aging process in the coming years will impose a series of challenges to many European countries, among them Denmark. A significant decrease in the pop- ulation in the working ages (16 to 65 years old) is expected for the following years, along with an increase in the population over 65 years old. Immigrant workers are seen as a possible solution for this gap. Denmark, however, has one of the highest unemployment rates among immigrant among OECD-countries [1, 2]. Given the lower labour market participation rate among immigrants in Denmark, changes in the current integration policies in terms of labour market participation, as well as in the educational, economic and social integration policies will be needed in order to bring them into the labour market. The elderly care sector has been under pressure due to difficulties to recruit and maintain social-health workers. Especially because this particular work sector has a negative stigma among the Danish population in terms of its work environment. In addition the elderly care work is typically associated with low status work, low pays and poor quality of life due to shifts work. Therefore, the recruitment of immigrants in this work sector has been encouraged through specific campaigns and incentives [3–5]. As result, technical education facilities have reported an increase in the number of immigrants attending social health care education: about 40% of the students have another ethnic background than Danish. 1 Hence, the increased interests on descriptive studies to explore similarities and/or differences between immigrants integrated to the labour market and Danish workers in terms of socio-demographic characteristics, occupational health and work related issues (e.g., physical & psychosocial work environment). Descriptive studies on immigrants working in this specific sector can be beneficial for better understanding of this group’s needs and the designing of appropriate policies to address specific work issues related to immigrants and their interaction in the workplace. The empirical evidence A. Ortega (&) Á I. G. Carneiro Á M.-A. Flyvholm National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Lersø Parkalle ´ 105, Copenhagen 2100, Denmark e-mail: adryortegaro@yahoo.com 1 For further information see: ‘Arbejdsmiljøforhold for SOSU- uddannede indvandrere i Danmark’, by Hanne Giver et al. (report published in Danish) or contact Hanne Giver at hgi@ncrwe.dk. 123 J Immigrant Minority Health (2010) 12:699–706 DOI 10.1007/s10903-009-9257-4