On May 20, GSL Associate Director Mathieu Poirier published an article in MDPI’s International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health titled, “Informality, Social Citizenship, and Wellbeing among Migrant Workers in Costa Rica in the Context of COVID-19”.
The open-access study demonstrates how in spite of Costa Rica’s acclaimed social welfare policies, migrant workers continue to face exclusion due to administrative, social, and financial barriers. 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.
The study reminds us that these challenges are not limited to Central America, and as we transition to a new phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries in both the global south and the global north must do more to provide migrants with a path to full social citizenship.
Read the study here: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/10/6224/htm#
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