IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v138y2015icp57-67.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Family legal status and health: Measurement dilemmas in studies of Mexican-origin children

Author

Listed:
  • Oropesa, R.S.
  • Landale, Nancy S.
  • Hillemeier, Marianne M.

Abstract

Family legal status is a potentially important source of variation in the health of Mexican-origin children. However, a comprehensive understanding of its role has been elusive due to data limitations and inconsistent measurement procedures. Using restricted data from the 2011–2012 California Health Interview Survey, we investigate the implications of measurement strategies for estimating the share of children in undocumented families and inferences about how legal status affects children's health. The results show that inferences are sensitive to how this “fundamental cause” is operationalized under various combinatorial approaches used in previous studies. We recommend alternative procedures with greater capacity to reveal how the statuses of both parents affect children's well-being. The results suggest that the legal statuses of both parents matter, but the status of mothers is especially important for assessments of child health. The investigation concludes with a discussion of possible explanations for these findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Oropesa, R.S. & Landale, Nancy S. & Hillemeier, Marianne M., 2015. "Family legal status and health: Measurement dilemmas in studies of Mexican-origin children," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 57-67.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:138:y:2015:i:c:p:57-67
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.05.038
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953615003202
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.05.038?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lee, S. & Brown, E.R. & Grant, D. & Belin, T.R. & Brick, J.M., 2009. "Exploring nonresponse bias in a health survey using neighborhood characteristics," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 99(10), pages 1811-1817.
    2. Viruell-Fuentes, E.A. & Morenoff, J.D. & Williams, D.R. & House, J.S., 2011. "Language of interview, self-rated health, and the other Latino health puzzle," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 101(7), pages 1306-1313.
    3. James D. Bachmeier & Jennifer Van Hook & Frank D. Bean, 2014. "Can We Measure Immigrants' Legal Status? Lessons from Two U.S. Surveys," International Migration Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(2), pages 538-566, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Erin R. Hamilton & Caitlin Patler & Robin Savinar, 2022. "Immigrant Legal Status Disparities in Health Among First- and One-point-five-Generation Latinx Immigrants in California," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 41(3), pages 1241-1260, June.
    2. R. S. Oropesa & Nancy S. Landale & Marianne M. Hillemeier, 2016. "Legal Status and Health Care: Mexican-Origin Children in California, 2001–2014," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 35(5), pages 651-684, October.
    3. Kazumi Tsuchiya & Olivia Toles & Christopher Levesque & Kimberly Horner & Eric Ryu & Linus Chan & Jack DeWaard, 2021. "Perceived structural vulnerabilities among detained noncitizen immigrants in Minnesota," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(6), pages 1-22, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. R. S. Oropesa & Nancy S. Landale & Marianne M. Hillemeier, 2016. "Legal Status and Health Care: Mexican-Origin Children in California, 2001–2014," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 35(5), pages 651-684, October.
    2. Francisca M. Antman & Brian Duncan & Stephen J. Trejo, 2020. "Ethnic attrition, assimilation, and the measured health outcomes of Mexican Americans," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(4), pages 1499-1522, October.
    3. Joseph-Simon Görlach, 2023. "Borrowing Constraints and the Dynamics of Return and Repeat Migration," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(1), pages 205-243.
    4. Shaoqing Gong & Liang Wang & Zhongliang Zhou & Kesheng Wang & Arsham Alamian, 2022. "Income Disparities in Obesity Trends among U.S. Adults: An Analysis of the 2011–2014 California Health Interview Survey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(12), pages 1-9, June.
    5. Tam, Lewis H.K. & Tian, Shaohua, 2023. "Language barriers, corporate site visit, and analyst forecast accuracy," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 68-83.
    6. Matthew Hall & Kelly Musick & Youngmin Yi, 2019. "Living Arrangements and Household Complexity among Undocumented Immigrants," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 45(1), pages 81-101, March.
    7. Lazarevič, Patrick & Brandt, Martina, 2020. "Diverging ideas of health? Comparing the basis of health ratings across gender, age, and country," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 267(C).
    8. Bjornstrom, Eileen E.S. & Kuhl, Danielle C., 2014. "A different look at the epidemiological paradox: Self-rated health, perceived social cohesion, and neighborhood immigrant context," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 118-125.
    9. Ybarra, Marci & Ha, Yoonsook & Chang, Jina, 2017. "Health insurance coverage and routine health care use among children by family immigration status," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 97-106.
    10. M Fernanda Lima-Costa & James Macinko & Juliana Vaz de Melo Mambrini & Cibele C Cesar & Sérgio V Peixoto & Wagner C S Magalhães & Bernardo L Horta & Mauricio Barreto & Erico Castro-Costa & Josélia O A, 2015. "Genomic Ancestry, Self-Rated Health and Its Association with Mortality in an Admixed Population: 10 Year Follow-Up of the Bambui-Epigen (Brazil) Cohort Study of Ageing," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(12), pages 1-14, December.
    11. Mara Sheftel & Frank W. Heiland, 2018. "Disability crossover: Is there a Hispanic immigrant health advantage that reverses from working to old age?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 39(7), pages 209-250.
    12. Xintong Liu & Yang Song, 2020. "Comparing the Ethnicity Proxy and Residual Method: Applications to the State-level DREAM Acts and DACA," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 46(1), pages 82-101, January.
    13. Edwards Brad, 2017. "Discussion," Journal of Official Statistics, Sciendo, vol. 33(4), pages 887-890, December.
    14. Laura Rossouw & Teresa Bago d’Uva & Eddy Doorslaer, 2018. "Poor Health Reporting? Using Anchoring Vignettes to Uncover Health Disparities by Wealth and Race," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(5), pages 1935-1956, October.
    15. Erin R. Hamilton & Jo Mhairi Hale & Robin Savinar, 2019. "Immigrant Legal Status and Health: Legal Status Disparities in Chronic Conditions and Musculoskeletal Pain Among Mexican-Born Farm Workers in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(1), pages 1-24, February.
    16. Hong, Seunghye & Zhang, Wei & Walton, Emily, 2014. "Neighborhoods and mental health: Exploring ethnic density, poverty, and social cohesion among Asian Americans and Latinos," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 117-124.
    17. Margot I. Jackson & Tate Kihara, 2019. "The Educational Gradient in Health Among Children in Immigrant Families," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 38(6), pages 869-897, December.
    18. Christal Hamilton & James Bachmeier & Claire Altman & Cody Spence, 2022. "Legal status and health disparities: An examination of health insurance coverage among the foreign-born," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 47(16), pages 453-488.
    19. Annie Ro & Jennifer Hook, 2022. "Comparing the Effectiveness of Assignment Strategies for Estimating Likely Undocumented Status in Secondary Data Sources for Latino and Asian Immigrants," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 41(2), pages 449-464, April.
    20. Jeehye Kang & Ingrid P. Whitaker, 2022. "Mexican-Origin Children's Educational Expectations and Academic Performance: Disparities Across Maternal Legal Status and Children’s Immigrant Generation," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 41(3), pages 1191-1216, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:138:y:2015:i:c:p:57-67. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.