BackgroundA systematic attempt to summarize the literature that examines working conditions and occupational health among immigrant in Europe and Canada.MethodsWe established inclusion criteria, searched systematically for articles included in the Medline, Embase and Social Sciences Citation Index databases in the period 2000–2016 and checked the reference lists of all included papers.ResultsEighty-two studies were included in this review; 90% were cross-sectional and 80% were based on self-report. Work injuries were consistently found to be more prevalent among immigrants in studies from different countries and in studies with different designs. The prevalence of perceived discrimination or bullying was found to be consistently higher among immigrant workers than among natives. In general, however, we found that the evidence that immigrant workers are more likely to be exposed to physical or chemical hazards and poor psychosocial working conditions is very limited. A few Scandinavian studies support the idea that occupational factors may partly contribute to the higher risk of sick leave or disability pension observed among immigrants. However, the evidence for working conditions as a potential mediator of the associations between immigrant status and poor general health and mental distress was very limited.ConclusionSome indicators suggest that immigrant workers in Europe and Canada experience poorer working conditions and occupational health than do native workers. However, the ability to draw conclusions is limited by the large gaps in the available data, heterogeneity of immigrant working populations, and the lack of prospectively designed cohort studies.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-018-5703-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The work of a Finnish veterinarian, the work environment, and the risks of the work varied greatly depending on the tasks assigned to the veterinarian. This has to be taken into consideration when occupational health services are planned for veterinarians.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether immigrants, when in the minority, are more exposed to bullying at work than natives, and whether immigrants’ cultural distance from the host culture increases the risk of being bullied. Design/methodology/approach – The study was conducted as a cross-sectional survey. The participants were immigrant (N=183) and native (N=186) employees in a transport company in Finland. Findings – Whereas immigrants on average were more likely than natives to label themselves as being bullied, the culturally least distant group of immigrants did not differ in this regard from natives. Compared to natives, the risk of being bullied was nearly three times higher in the intermediate distance group of immigrants and nearly eight times higher in the culturally most distant group. The primary type of negative act immigrants were subjected to was social exclusion. Research limitations/implications – It would be advisable for future research investigating immigrants’ exposure to bullying to use quasi-objective measures along with a self-labelling measure, and to apply qualitative methods. Practical implications – The heightened risk of culturally distant immigrants to being exposed to bullying might be reduced by improving employees’ cross-cultural communication skills and by promoting an atmosphere of acceptance of cultural diversity. Originality/value – The study is an addition to the still scarce literature on immigrants’ exposure to workplace bullying, and takes into particular account immigrants’ cultural distance from their host culture.

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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the direct and moderating effect of gender and parental status on the relationship between international business travel days and work-to-family conflict (WFC) among international business travellers (IBTs) on the basis of the conservation of resources theory. Design/methodology/approach – The study was conducted among 1,366 Finnish people in jobs demanding international business travel and a moderated hierarchical regression was utilised in data analysis. Findings – An increase in the number of international business travel days and being a parent is positively related to WFC. Women with dependent children experience a lower level of WFC than do men with dependent children. However, a significant interaction effect between international business travel days, parental status and gender was found that indicates that the volume of travel days increases the level of WFC for those women who have children more than it does for women who do not have children. For men, increased numbers of travel days raises levels of WFC, as does having children, but there is no interaction between travel days and parental status among men. An increased number of travel days was least critical for WFC among women without dependent children and most critical for WFC among women with dependent children However, women with dependent children were able to travel to a considerable extent before their levels of WFC overtook those of men with dependent children. Practical implications – The findings indicate that organisations should pay particular attention to developing policies and practices that take account of the family status of the traveller. In addition, to assist IBTs to cope with their WFC, attention should be paid to the intensity of work-related travel. However, gender seemed not to play a particularly important role in WFC, indicating that organisations need not be wary of recruiting both men and women into roles involving international business travel. Originality/value – This is the first study focusing on IBTs WFC that simultaneously takes account of how the intensity of business travel and both gender and parenthood are related to it.