新冠肺炎疫情下 臺灣藍領移工的心理健康與福祉

Mental Health and Well-being of Blue-collar Migrant Workers in Taiwan during the COVID–19 Pandemic

本研究採取健康社會決定因素的探究取徑，主張遷移為影響心理健康和福祉的重要因素，藉由網路與紙本匿名問卷，檢視新冠肺炎疫情相關因素對臺灣藍領移工心理健康與福祉的影響。研究結果發現，政府發布三級警戒後，移工的心理健康程度下降，且心理健康不良的比例略有增加。移工生活受疫情影響越大、感受防疫困難越高，其心理健康水平越低；曾有新冠肺炎相關的暴露經驗與疫情對生活的影響，則是移工心理健康不良的風險因素。除與既有的相關研究對話，根據研究結果，我們主張臺灣政府應考量新冠肺炎疫情加劇了移工社群不利的結構性處境，並提供物質、經濟安全、聘僱與健康服務等支持性服務，減輕他們面臨的生活影響與防疫困難，以保護其心理健康。

The COVID–19 pandemic is an important public health issue accompanied by serious economic and social consequences. Since the outbreak, most scientific research has focused on its impacts on clinical medicine and physical health, but paid little attention to the pandemic’s impacts on psychological and social well-being. During the pandemic, migrant workers are among the most vulnerable groups. Compared with the local population, migrant workers encounter more barriers in access¬ing information on relevant COVID–19 government regulations and protective equipment because of their limited ability to speak local lan¬guages and the fact that policies often fail to include them. They are not entitled to the welfare systems in host countries. The travel bans and restrictions on movement constrain their mobility. This study adopts the social determinants of health approach to argue that migration is an essential factor that affects individuals’mental health and well-being. The structural forces, power relations, and social inequalities involved in organizing social life shape migrant workers’mental health and well-being.
This article starts with an introduction to the migration regime and policies in Taiwan, including Taiwan’s guest worker system, as well as migrant workers’conditions during the COVID–19 pandemic, to dem-onstrate the constraints on their labor and health rights. Then, it reviews the relevant studies to identify the multiple structural factors that affect migrant workers’mental health and well-being during the pandemic. Third, the methods section describes research participants and their recruitment, data collection, measurements, and statistical analysis. The survey was conducted from August 12 to December 16, 2021, through online and paper-based anonymous questionnaires by recruiting migrant workers from Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand. Based on data from 712 migrant workers, the study examines the impacts of pandemic-related factors (including exposure to the virus, vaccination, impacts of the pandemic on migrant workers’daily lives, difficulties in accessing the outbreak control measures information and prevention materials, perceived discrimination, and attitudes toward prevention measures) on migrant workers’mental health and well-being in Taiwan during the pandemic. The rest of this article is followed by research find¬ings and the discussion. The results show that, first, after the government issued the level-three alert of the COVID–19 outbreak in May 2021, the mental health of migrant workers worsened, and the proportion of migrant workers with poor mental health increased slightly. Second, the greater the perceived impacts of the pandemic on daily life and the greater the perceived difficulties in accessing outbreak control informa¬tion or materials (were), the lower was the level of mental health expe¬rienced by migrant workers. Third, the exposure experiences related to COVID–19 and the perceived impact of the pandemic on daily life are risk factors for poor mental health in migrant workers. The research find¬ings suggest that the adverse effects on migrant workers’mental health and well-being reflect social exclusion due to the migration regime based on the guest workers system. This article concludes with policy impli¬cations. Based on the findings, the researchers argue that the Taiwanese government should consider the fact that the COVID–19 pandemic may aggravate the structural vulnerability of migrant workers. Furthermore, they suggest that, in order to protect migrant workers’mental health, the government could consider providing migrant workers with material and financial support as well as employment and health services to mitigate the pandemic’s impacts on migrant workers’daily lives and their dif¬ficulties in accessing outbreak control materials and information.