Worker-Driven Social Responsibility and Infant Health
Published in Demography, 2025
A growing body of research provides evidence of extensive economic and health disparities faced by migrant farmworkers and their families, underscoring the need for livable wages, health insurance, and better working conditions. Recently, programs have provided payment to workers from corporate-supported premiums, yet no studies have explored the impacts of such programs on the health of the communities they target. In this study, we investigate whether the implementation of a workers’ rights organization program within the agriculture industry promoted health in farmworker communities by evaluating changes in infant health outcomes. Using restricted birth records data from the National Vital Statistics System from 2006 to 2018, we show that the adoption of the Fair Food Program was associated with reductions in low-weight births among foreign-born mothers from Latin America. These results underscore how strengthening labor and employment conditions for birthing parents can mitigate possible long-term or latent adverse health outcomes among U.S.-born children.
Rubalcaba, Joaquin A-A., Alberto Ortega. “Worker-Driven Social Responsibility and Infant Health” Demography (2025).