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Informality, Social Citizenship, and Wellbeing among Migrant Workers in Costa Rica in the Context of COVID-19

Costa Rica is home to 557,000 migrants, whose disproportionate exposure to precarious, dangerous, and informal work has resulted in persistent inequities in health and wellbeing in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. We used a novel multimodal grounded approach synthesizing documentary film, experie...

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Autores principales: Poirier, Mathieu J. P., Barraza, Douglas, Caxaj, C. Susana, Martínez, Ana María, Hard, Julie, Montoya, Felipe
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9141649/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35627759
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19106224
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author Poirier, Mathieu J. P.
Barraza, Douglas
Caxaj, C. Susana
Martínez, Ana María
Hard, Julie
Montoya, Felipe
author_facet Poirier, Mathieu J. P.
Barraza, Douglas
Caxaj, C. Susana
Martínez, Ana María
Hard, Julie
Montoya, Felipe
author_sort Poirier, Mathieu J. P.
collection PubMed
description Costa Rica is home to 557,000 migrants, whose disproportionate exposure to precarious, dangerous, and informal work has resulted in persistent inequities in health and wellbeing in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. We used a novel multimodal grounded approach synthesizing documentary film, experiential education, and academic research to explore socioecological wellbeing among Nicaraguan migrant workers in Costa Rica. Participants pointed to the COVID-19 pandemic as exacerbating the underlying conditions of vulnerability, such as precarity and informality, dangerous working conditions, social and systemic discrimination, and additional burdens faced by women. However, the narrative that emerged most consistently in shaping migrants’ experience of marginalization were challenges in obtaining documentation—both in the form of legal residency and health insurance coverage. Our results demonstrate that, in spite of Costa Rica’s acclaimed social welfare policies, migrant workers continue to face exclusion due to administrative, social, and financial barriers. These findings paint a rich picture of how multiple intersections of precarious, informal, and dangerous working conditions; social and systemic discrimination; gendered occupational challenges; and access to legal residency and health insurance coverage combine to prevent the full achievement of a shared minimum standard of social and economic security for migrant workers in Costa Rica.
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spelling pubmed-91416492022-05-28 Informality, Social Citizenship, and Wellbeing among Migrant Workers in Costa Rica in the Context of COVID-19 Poirier, Mathieu J. P. Barraza, Douglas Caxaj, C. Susana Martínez, Ana María Hard, Julie Montoya, Felipe Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Costa Rica is home to 557,000 migrants, whose disproportionate exposure to precarious, dangerous, and informal work has resulted in persistent inequities in health and wellbeing in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. We used a novel multimodal grounded approach synthesizing documentary film, experiential education, and academic research to explore socioecological wellbeing among Nicaraguan migrant workers in Costa Rica. Participants pointed to the COVID-19 pandemic as exacerbating the underlying conditions of vulnerability, such as precarity and informality, dangerous working conditions, social and systemic discrimination, and additional burdens faced by women. However, the narrative that emerged most consistently in shaping migrants’ experience of marginalization were challenges in obtaining documentation—both in the form of legal residency and health insurance coverage. Our results demonstrate that, in spite of Costa Rica’s acclaimed social welfare policies, migrant workers continue to face exclusion due to administrative, social, and financial barriers. These findings paint a rich picture of how multiple intersections of precarious, informal, and dangerous working conditions; social and systemic discrimination; gendered occupational challenges; and access to legal residency and health insurance coverage combine to prevent the full achievement of a shared minimum standard of social and economic security for migrant workers in Costa Rica. MDPI 2022-05-20 /pmc/articles/PMC9141649/ /pubmed/35627759 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19106224 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Poirier, Mathieu J. P.
Barraza, Douglas
Caxaj, C. Susana
Martínez, Ana María
Hard, Julie
Montoya, Felipe
Informality, Social Citizenship, and Wellbeing among Migrant Workers in Costa Rica in the Context of COVID-19
title Informality, Social Citizenship, and Wellbeing among Migrant Workers in Costa Rica in the Context of COVID-19
title_full Informality, Social Citizenship, and Wellbeing among Migrant Workers in Costa Rica in the Context of COVID-19
title_fullStr Informality, Social Citizenship, and Wellbeing among Migrant Workers in Costa Rica in the Context of COVID-19
title_full_unstemmed Informality, Social Citizenship, and Wellbeing among Migrant Workers in Costa Rica in the Context of COVID-19
title_short Informality, Social Citizenship, and Wellbeing among Migrant Workers in Costa Rica in the Context of COVID-19
title_sort informality, social citizenship, and wellbeing among migrant workers in costa rica in the context of covid-19
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9141649/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35627759
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19106224
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