Healthcare
In the coming years, as our country’s 76.4 million baby boomers enter their elderly years, our country’s healthcare system will face unprecedented demand, adding jobs faster than any other segment of our economy. Yet, employers are already finding that there are not enough unemployed healthcare workers to fill vacant positions, and in some rural areas, shortages are particularly acute.
For several reasons, immigrants have been a particularly important stopgap filling some of our most glaring healthcare needs. Immigrants are twice as likely as native-born to fill lesser skilled home health aide positions, but also twice as likely to fill high-skilled positions as physicians and surgeons. And because immigrants tend to be more willing to move for a job than the native-born, and there are visa provisions to encourage this, immigrants also fill doctor vacancies in some of our rural communities with the greatest need. A smarter immigration system, however, could help fill far more gaps in our healthcare system, benefiting patients.
A Stowaway’s Son Uses Business Acumen to Help New Jersey Elders
Dominican immigrant Jose Brito Bueno grew up in poverty but now runs WeCare, a domestic-care company with 213 employees. When he was just 10 years old, his father — leaving their home in Santo Domingo — stowed away in a cargo ship bound for the United States. He hid in… Read More
Diversity Lottery Winner Will Help Ease America’s Doctor Shortage
Tarig Elhakim was in medical school in Sudan in 2014 when his father persuaded him to apply for a U. S. residency permit through the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, a highly competitive lottery that allows 50,000 people a year to immigrate without a family sponsor or a special skill. Elhakim… Read More
National Nurse’s Day: The Role of Immigrant Nurses in America
The U.S. healthcare system is in demand. Our study showed that for every healthcare worker seeking a job, there are 4.4 jobs listed for the field, ranging from occupational therapists to surgeons. And while the healthcare industry’s job openings offer opportunities for workers, they raise concerns… Read More
Immigration Key to Future of Rural Appalachia
Jenny Williams, an English professor at Hazard Community and Technical College, knows that immigration has been crucial to rural Perry County. Her father was a doctor in the 1970s, when the region lacked qualified medical professionals. Then Appalachian Regional Healthcare began recruiting foreign-born doctors, primarily from India, to practice at… Read More
Mental Health Counselor’s Life in Limbo Without DACA Solution
The last time Nidya was in Nayarit, a state on the west coast of Mexico where she was born, she was just 2 years old. That’s when she moved with her parents to San Diego. Since then, she has thrived. She attended the University of California, Santa Cruz, and received… Read More
War Refugee Trains Americans to Fill Buffalo’s Skills Gaps
Bassam Deeb arrived in the United States as a teenage refugee. It was 1976, and his family had fled Lebanon, a country mired in a civil war that would last until 1990 and cost the country an estimated 120,000 lives. Deeb, 15 at the time, spoke no English and… Read More
Thai Doctor Served Where Many U.S. Physicians Don’t: In Rural Kentucky
Dr. Manosh Vongvises, a retired ear, nose, and throat specialist, has seen the number of medical professionals in Pikeville, Kentucky, multiply in the last 30 years — and many are immigrants like him. According to a report by New American Economy, 21.6 percent of the doctors in… Read More
Troy Professor: Make It Easier For High-Skilled Workers And Entrepreneurs to Immigrate
Maryam Stevenson has dedicated her professional career to studying how high-skilled immigrants help the American economy. As an immigration attorney in Memphis in the mid-aughts, she specialized in skilled worker visas for the healthcare industry. Today, as an assistant professor of political science at Troy University in Troy, Alabama, she… Read More
Syrian-born Cardiologist Practices Where American Doctors Are Most Needed
Altoona, Pennsylvania, has a lot to recommend it: a small-town feel, a beautiful rural landscape and friendly people. But there is one thing that Altoona is missing: doctors. “There is a very high demand for doctors here,” says Dr. Ziad Khoury, a Syrian-born cardiologist who has lived in the area… Read More
DACA Pre-Med Student ‘One of the People Who Makes America Great’
Maria’s mother never finished high school in Mexico. Instead, after having Maria at age 16, she and Maria’s father crossed the border into the United States. “They decided the best thing would be to come here and look for a better life,” says Maria, who has lived in Fort Wayne,… Read More
Help Wanted
In all 50 states, there are already far more healthcare jobs open than there are workers available to fill them. Many policymakers worry that extreme demands on the healthcare system are coming at a time when many parts of the country still lack enough physicians and healthcare providers to offer adequate—or even basic—levels of care.
Healthcare Jobs Advertised for Each Unemployed Health Worker, 2013
Rural Provider Shortages
Rural communities, in many ways, feel healthcare worker shortages most acutely. Rural counties, on average, have far fewer doctors or home health aides per capita than more urban ones. But their healthcare needs are often greater—particularly given their older populations and higher rates of disability. Foreign-born physicians, who are often more willing to relocate than native-born colleagues, are a valuable resource for these medically underserved areas.
Indicators of Health Demand, Metro vs. Nonmetro Areas, 2014
Ratio of Providers to Population in Different County Types, 2014
The Role of Immigrants
In many health occupations, from surgeons to home health aides, immigrants already make up a large share of active workers. As the U.S. population continues to age and as healthcare demands increase, immigrants are expected to play an increasingly important role in the health of the nation.
Top Healthcare Jobs by Share of Foreign-Born Workers, 2018
Aging Baby Boomers
The 76.4 million baby boomers living in America represent a major challenge to our broader healthcare system. Baby boomers are expected to live longer than past generations, while also battling chronic, longstanding conditions. If caregivers remain scarce in some parts of the country, adult children could drop out of the labor force in large numbers to care for aging parents—a potential setback for the economy overall.
Sources:
2 Wan He et al., “65+ in the United States: 2005,” Current Population Reports: Special Studies (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institute of Aging and U.S. Census Bureau, December 2005). Available online.; Carrie A. Werner, “The Older Population: 2010,” 2010 Census Briefs, November 2011. Available online.
3 Keehan, Sean P, Helen C. Lazenby, Mark A. Zezza, and Aaron S. Catlin, “Age Estimates in the National Health Accounts,” Health Care Financing Review 2, no. 2 (2003). Web Exclusive.
4MetLife, “Caregiving Costs to Working Caregivers: Double Jeopardy for Baby Boomers Caring for Their Parents,” June 2011. Available online.
Size of U.S. Population, Age 65+
Home Health Aides
As the share of the U.S. population over 65 continues to increase, demand for home health aides is expected to soar. But the U.S.-born workers who typically fill such jobs—working age women with less than a bachelor’s degree—is shrinking. Immigrants are already playing an outsized role as home health aides, and can help address our country’s growing needs for such workers in the future.
Psychiatrists
An estimated one in five Americans experiences a mental health issue each year, yet more than 40 percent never receive care.5 One reason why so many individuals go untreated and undiagnosed: The country’s large and growing shortage of mental health professionals, an issue that is particularly acute in America’s rural communities. While immigrants already play a large role in our psychiatry workforce, more could be done to leverage their training and skills.
Sources:
5 Pamela S. Hyde and Paolo Del Vecchio, “Five Point Plan to Improve the Nation’s Mental Health,” Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, n.d. Available online.; Patrick W. Corrigan, Benjamin G. Druss, and Deborah A. Perlick, “The Impact of Mental Illness Stigma on Seeking and Participating in Mental Health Care,” Association for Psychological Science, August 1, 2014. Available online.
States with the Most Days of Decreased or Compromised Worker Productivity Due to Inadequate Mental Healthcare
Visa Obstacles
Despite the critical role immigrants play in the healthcare workforce, the U.S. immigration system makes it difficult for employers to recruit immigrants, even when no U.S.-born workers are available. Many foreign medical residents who study in the United States come on the J-1 visa, a visa that requires them to return home for at least two years after completing their training. One program, The Conrad 30 Waiver, allows states to waive this return requirement for foreign medical residents willing to take jobs in underserved areas. The program, however, is far too limited to meet current needs. Expanding the Conrad 30 program and exploring other fixes—like offering a dedicated temporary work visa to health workers—would go a long way towards addressing our healthcare labor force challenges. So would streamlining the relicensing process for some foreign-trained doctors already here.
Sources:
6 José Ramón Fernández-Peña, Founder and Director of Welcome Back Initiative, August 2015.
7 Ibid.
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