Importance of Nationality for Older Migrants’ Pandemic-Related Worries

Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, people have been worried about COVID-19. Older persons (65+) seem to be especially vulnerable, and minorities and migrants have been hit harder by the pandemic than natives. Data shows that older Italian international migrants living in Switzerland have been considerably more worried about the pandemic than older Swiss natives. Why have they been more worried although they have experienced the pandemic in a similar context? And how was Swiss nationality relevant in this case?

In 2021, we started analyzing our new dataset on transnationalism in Switzerland and Italy. For this dataset, we gathered interviews from almost 3200 persons aged 65 and older, living in Italy or Switzerland, and belonging to one of four populations: Italian international migrants living in Switzerland, Swiss natives living in Switzerland, Italian internal migrants living in Italy, and Italian non-migrants living in Italy.

More Worries Among International Migrants

When we asked all participants in the survey how worried they were about the COVID-19 pandemic, we stumbled across an interesting finding: Italian international migrants were far more worried than Swiss natives. Although both populations lived through the COVID-19 pandemic in the same country and the same cantons, they seemed to experience it very differently.

Figure 1. Comparison of worry about the pandemic between survey populations

Additionally, we found that Italian international migrants were almost equally worried as Italian internal migrants and Italian non-migrants. However, why were older Italian international migrants more worried than Swiss natives? Why were they as worried as Italians in Italy?

Three possible answers might explain the difference in worry between Italian international migrants and Swiss natives: composition effects – i.e., the effects related to the specific sociodemographic characteristics of each group, the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, and transnationalism of international migrants.

Testing Three Potential Explanations

One of the reasons why a difference in worry between migrants and Swiss natives exists could be that Italian migrants in Switzerland are in worse health than the Swiss natives. We may assume that persons having bad health would be more worried about COVID-19 (Soiné et al. 2021), and as such Italian international migrants might be more worried about the pandemic.

Similar arguments can be made for other variables, like age (Kuhn et al., 2021), family status (Buyukkececi 2021), and income (Kuhn et al. 2021). However, even when controlling for all these possible variables, our models show that the difference in worry about the pandemic is still significant between the two populations. Composition differences, therefore, do not sufficiently explain why Italian migrants are more worried than the Swiss natives.

Would the severity of the COVID-19 situation in Italy then be responsible for the difference in the levels of worry among these target groups? Italy was one of the countries hit very early on and the hardest by the pandemic at the beginning of 2020 (Remuzzi & Remuzzi, 2020).

One of the biggest fears in the context of COVID-19 seemed to be the health of others, such as friends and family (Mertens et al. 2020). It seems that this fear was superior even to the worry about one’s own health. As many Italian migrants still have friends and family living in Italy, they could potentially be more worried about the pandemic because they were worried about their friends and family back home.

In our models, we controlled for the COVID-19 situation in the respondents’ region of origin by using the weekly average of total COVID-19 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic per 100.000 citizens. The results show that the severity of the COVID-19 situation is not responsible for the difference in worry between the two populations.

The last explanation that we tested was migrants’ transnationalism. We see transnationalism as all the connections, physical and psychological, that migrants have with their country of origin. Among the examples are visits to the country, friends and family living there, intentions of returning, or even keeping up with the news related to the country.

Watching the news as well as having and being in contact with friends and family in the country of origin could foster anxiety and worry about the pandemic (Cao & Sun, 2021, Mertens et al. 2020). Hence, migrants who are more transnational, i.e., more connected with their country of origin, might be more worried about the pandemic, which may explain the difference between Italian migrants and Swiss natives.

We tested this explanation and found that Italian migrants who are not transnational, i.e., very disconnected from Italy, were just as worried about the pandemic as Swiss natives. Therefore, the connections Italian international migrants have to Italy are only part of the explanation for the higher levels of worry compared to the Swiss natives.

The Importance of Swiss Nationality

So, what were the specific characteristics of transnationalism that could explain the diverse levels of worry about the pandemic? Additional models show that especially one variable made a difference: whether or not migrants hold Swiss nationality.

Although according to our data, we cannot explain how exactly having the Swiss nationality would have decreased worries about the pandemic for Italian migrants, we assume that having the nationality of a country where the barriers to obtaining full citizenship status are comparably high (Koopmans 2010), like Switzerland, can add a layer of security for migrants.

Having Swiss nationality might give migrants a secure feeling of being treated without being discriminated against in the Swiss health care system, something especially important during a pandemic. In contrast, not having Swiss nationality might leave migrants feeling like second-class citizens in an exceptionally expensive health care system with inequalities between migrants and non-migrants (Tzogiou et al. 2021; Spang & Zuppinger, 2010).

Excessive fear and worry are associated with negative health outcomes over time (Garfin et al., 2020). The results of our study can hopefully inform policymakers on how to create environments that are inducing less worry, fear, and stress in migrants to reduce the emergence of adverse health outcomes.

Sarah M. Ludwig-Dehm is a post-doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Social Work of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (HETSL / HES-SO) in Lausanne, Switzerland and is affiliated with the Swiss Centre of Expertise in Life Course Research, University of Geneva, Switzerland. She currently works on the project “Transnational ageing among older migrants and natives: A strategy to overcome vulnerability.”

Iuna Dones is a Ph.D. student at the University of Geneva and researcher at the Faculty of Social Work of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (HETSL / HES-SO) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and is affiliated with the Swiss Centre of Expertise in Life Course Research, University of Geneva, Switzerland. She is currently working on her Ph.D. within the project on “Transnational ageing among older migrants and natives: A strategy to overcome vulnerability.”

References:

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