Systemic barriers to the inclusion of migrant construction workers in the workforce: an integrated approach (supplemental materials)

Despite being recognized as a vital workforce for addressing labor shortages and sustaining the construction industry’s productivity, migrant construction workers continue to face significant challenges to their inclusion. While research efforts have been devoted to address this problem, their segmented nature has resulted in a lack of comprehensive understanding of the interactive inclusion barriers in this context, in both the literature and practice. To address this gap, this paper adopts an integrated approach to first synthesize the barriers to the inclusion of migrant construction workers through a systematic literature review (Study 1) and then examine how the identified barriers interact through system dynamics (SD) modeling (Study 2). The results reveal 17 key inclusion barriers, spanning across three levels (i.e., societal, organizational and individual) and five themes (i.e., labor market access and precarity; health, safety and wellbeing at work; representation, voice and collective action; social integration and belonging, organizational support). Among the identified barriers, labor marginalization and inadequate union support have emerged as two critical barriers that can trigger a vicious cycle, exacerbating other barriers. These findings highlight the variety and interconnected nature of inclusion barriers and, thereby, the need for a systematic approach to enhance the inclusion of migrant construction workers in the workforce. Accordingly, this paper presents a practical framework to guide the prioritization of inclusion efforts. Theoretically, by integrating inclusion theory and a systems thinking perspective, our theory-informed and interdisciplinary insights extend existing knowledge on the barriers facing migrant construction workers.