‘It’s very opportunistic’: Study shows why work, large families put Latinos at risk of virus

A new study shows that Latinos working in essential sectors and living in larger households during the coronavirus pandemic may contribute to why they continue to face higher rates of COVID-19 infections and deaths.

“Latinos have the highest labor force participation of any group and large, big supportive families, but crammed into very small households,” said Dr. David E. Hayes-Bautista, an author of the study and director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at UCLA. “COVID is just loving this is. It’s very opportunistic.”

Throughout the pandemic, Latinos have faced the brunt of the virus’ health and financial toll. Many have continued work in agricultural, hospitality and sanitation fields, where remote work is not possible, in order to keep food on the table.

The report shows that U.S. Latino families contain more wage earners per household than non-Hispanic white households. Latinos have an average of 1.6 wage earners per household, compared to 1.2 for non-Hispanic white households.

But working on the frontlines of the pandemic has come at a high cost for Latino households.

Between May and November, about 9,233 Latinos in California died from coronavirus-related causes compared to 5,781 of non-Hispanic, white Californians, despite Latinos and whites each accounting for a similar population size, according to a separate study by UCLA’s Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture.

Latino households in the U.S. are also more likely to have more children living at home than non-Hispanic white households, according to the study. On average, there is about one child in each Latino household in the U.S. compared to 0.5 children in white households.

“Therefore COVID-19 has two increased opportunities to infect Latino households: more wage earners who can be exposed to the virus at work and bring the infection home with them, and more children who can spread infection to family members while remaining asymptomatic themselves,” according to the study.

Due to California’s expensive housing market, low-income Latino families may find themselves living in crowded homes that can make social distancing difficult, according to Kevin Ferreira van Leer, an assistant professor of child and adolescent development at California State University, Sacramento and former scholar at the National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families.

More than one in five Latino households in the U.S. live in multi-generational households, according to the Pew Research Center.

Living with an aunt, uncle or grandparent is commonplace for many immigrant Latino households, according to Ferreira van Leer. He added that families in Italy and Spain — regions that were hard-hit by the virus in the early months of the pandemic — also consider in-laws or grandparents in traditional family units.

“The conditions that Latino families find themselves in more often put them in this very precarious nature of exposing their family because they’re living with more family members,” Ferreira van Leer said.

“I think what becomes very difficult in the times during COVID is we know that the types of jobs that families work in are going to mean ... that they’re more often on the frontline, they’re more often in places where they’re going to be vulnerable to COVID.”

Hayes-Bautista said other factors exist as to why Latinos are unequally affected by the pandemic. Some of those include the state’s shortage of Spanish-speaking physicians and that 12% of Latinos in California do not have health insurance, according to the California Latino Economic Institute.

“All these things add up,” Hayes-Bautista said. “The very least we could do is provide them protective equipment, provide them access to health care.”

This story was originally published February 9, 2021 at 5:00 AM.