Pathways to Healthcare for Migrant Workers : How Can Health Entitlement Influence Occupational Health Trajectories ?

Abstract

Drawing on a larger research project, this article focuses on the pathways to healthcare among precarious status migrants who, due to their ineligibility for other forms of income support, can be assumed to be dependent on employment for economic survival : Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs, eligible for medicare but not for welfare) and undocumented workers (ineligible for medicare, welfare, and nearly all other social benefits).1 We focus here on their pathways to healthcare in light of how their immigration status and their health entitlement may intersect to influence their occupational health trajectories.