IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v195y2017icp105-114.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unhealthy assimilation or persistent health advantage? A longitudinal analysis of immigrant health in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Lu, Yao
  • Denier, Nicole
  • Wang, Julia Shu-Huah
  • Kaushal, Neeraj

Abstract

Existing evidence on immigrant health assimilation, which is largely based on cross-sectional data, suggests that immigrants' initial health advantage erodes over time. This study uses longitudinal data to directly compare the self-rated health trajectories of immigrants and the native-born population. Data come from four panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (1996, 2001, 2004, and 2008), with each panel containing 2–4 years of health information. Results show that immigrants’ self-rated health remained stable during the period under study, but there was a concomitant decline in health for the native-born population. This result pointed to a persistent health advantage of immigrants during the period under study. The pattern held for immigrants of different length of residence and was especially salient for those originally from Latin America and Asia. Our findings that immigrants maintain their health advantage do not support the pattern of unhealthy assimilation commonly reported in cross-sectional studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Lu, Yao & Denier, Nicole & Wang, Julia Shu-Huah & Kaushal, Neeraj, 2017. "Unhealthy assimilation or persistent health advantage? A longitudinal analysis of immigrant health in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 105-114.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:195:y:2017:i:c:p:105-114
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.11.019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953617306834
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.11.019?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. Heather Antecol & Peter Kuhn & Stephen J. Trejo, 2006. "Assimilation via Prices or Quantities?: Sources of Immigrant Earnings Growth in Australia, Canada, and the United States," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 41(4).
    2. Robert Kaestner & Jay A. Pearson & Danya Keene & Arline T. Geronimus, 2009. "Stress, Allostatic Load, and Health of Mexican Immigrants," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1089-1111, December.
    3. Zoya Gubernskaya, 2015. "Age at Migration and Self-Rated Health Trajectories After Age 50: Understanding the Older Immigrant Health Paradox," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 70(2), pages 279-290.
    4. Acevedo-Garcia, Dolores & Bates, Lisa M. & Osypuk, Theresa L. & McArdle, Nancy, 2010. "The effect of immigrant generation and duration on self-rated health among US adults 2003-2007," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(6), pages 1161-1172, September.
    5. George J. Borjas, 2021. "Assimilation, Changes in Cohort Quality, and the Earnings of Immigrants," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foundational Essays in Immigration Economics, chapter 2, pages 3-29, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Heather Antecol & Kelly Bedard, 2006. "Unhealthy assimilation: Why do immigrants converge to American health status levels?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 43(2), pages 337-360, May.
    7. Kim, I.-H. & Carrasco, C. & Muntaner, C. & McKenzie, K. & Noh, S., 2013. "Ethnicity and postmigration health trajectory in new immigrants to Canada," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 103(4), pages 96-104.
    8. Barry R. Chiswick & Yew Liang Lee & Paul W. Miller, 2008. "Immigrant Selection Systems And Immigrant Health," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(4), pages 555-578, October.
    9. Shetterly, S.M. & Baxter, J. & Mason, L.D. & Hamman, R.F., 1996. "Self-rated health among hispanic vs non-hispanic white adults: The San Luis Valley health and aging study," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 86(12), pages 1798-1801.
    10. Robert Hummer & Daniel Powers & Starling Pullum & Ginger Gossman & W. Frisbie, 2007. "Paradox found (again): Infant mortality among the Mexican-origin population in the united states," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 44(3), pages 441-457, August.
    11. Franzini, Luisa & Fernandez-Esquer, Maria Eugenia, 2004. "Socioeconomic, cultural, and personal influences on health outcomes in low income Mexican-origin individuals in Texas," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 59(8), pages 1629-1646, October.
    12. Rubalcava, L.N. & Teruel, G.M. & Thomas, D. & Goldman, N., 2008. "The healthy migrant effect: New findings from the Mexican Family Life Survey," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 98(1), pages 78-84.
    13. Hamilton, Tod G. & Hummer, Robert A., 2011. "Immigration and the health of U.S. black adults: Does country of origin matter?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(10), pages 1551-1560.
    14. Nicholas Biddle & Steven Kennedy & James Ted Mcdonald, 2007. "Health Assimilation Patterns Amongst Australian Immigrants," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 83(260), pages 16-30, March.
    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. María José Martos-Méndez & Alba García-Cid & Luis Gómez-Jacinto & Isabel Hombrados-Mendieta, 2020. "Perceived Discrimination, Psychological Distress and Cardiovascular Risk in Migrants in Spain," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(12), pages 1-18, June.
    2. Marcela Oyarte & Baltica Cabieses & Isabel Rada & Alice Blukacz & Manuel Espinoza & Edward Mezones-Holguin, 2022. "Unequal Access and Use of Health Care Services among Settled Immigrants, Recent Immigrants, and Locals: A Comparative Analysis of a Nationally Representative Survey in Chile," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-20, December.
    3. Rennie Lee & Laxman Bablani, 2023. "Do Asian Immigrants Have Better Mental Health? An Examination of Arrival Cohort and Gender in Australia," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(3), pages 1-29, 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. Tod G. Hamilton, 2014. "Do Country-of-Origin Characteristics Help Explain Variation in Health Among Black Immigrants in the United States?," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 95(3), pages 817-834, September.
    2. Reynolds, Megan M. & Chernenko, Alla & Read, Jen'nan Ghazal, 2016. "Region of origin diversity in immigrant health: Moving beyond the Mexican case," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 102-109.
    3. Rennie Lee & Laxman Bablani, 2023. "Do Asian Immigrants Have Better Mental Health? An Examination of Arrival Cohort and Gender in Australia," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(3), pages 1-29, June.
    4. Ro, Annie & Fleischer, Nancy L. & Blebu, Bridgette, 2016. "An examination of health selection among U.S. immigrants using multi-national data," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 114-121.
    5. Jatrana, Santosh & Pasupuleti, Samba Siva Rao & Richardson, Ken, 2014. "Nativity, duration of residence and chronic health conditions in Australia: Do trends converge towards the native-born population?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 53-63.
    6. Jonas Kinge & Tom Kornstad, 2014. "Assimilation effects on infant mortality among immigrants in Norway: Does maternal source country matter?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 31(26), pages 779-812.
    7. Christina J. Diaz & Liwen Zeng & Ana P. Martinez-Donate, 2018. "Investigating Health Selection Within Mexico and Across the US Border," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 37(2), pages 181-204, April.
    8. Antonio Fidalgo & Alberto Holly & Marco Pecoraro & Philippe Wanner, 2016. "A nonparametric analysis of the healthy immigrant effect," IRENE Working Papers 16-15, IRENE Institute of Economic Research.
    9. Read, Jen'nan Ghazal & West, Jessica S. & Kamis, Christina, 2020. "Immigration and health among non-Hispanic whites: The impact of arrival cohort and region of birth," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    10. Lu, Yao & Qin, Lijian, 2014. "Healthy migrant and salmon bias hypotheses: A study of health and internal migration in China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 41-48.
    11. Zaiceva, A. & Zimmermann, K.F., 2016. "Migration and the Demographic Shift," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 119-177, Elsevier.
    12. Hamilton, Tod G. & Hummer, Robert A., 2011. "Immigration and the health of U.S. black adults: Does country of origin matter?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(10), pages 1551-1560.
    13. Acevedo-Garcia, Dolores & Bates, Lisa M. & Osypuk, Theresa L. & McArdle, Nancy, 2010. "The effect of immigrant generation and duration on self-rated health among US adults 2003-2007," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(6), pages 1161-1172, September.
    14. Sara Rellstab & Marco Pecoraro & Alberto Holly & Philippe Wanner & Karine Renard, 2016. "The Migrant Health Gap and the Role of Labour Market Status: Evidence from Switzerland," IRENE Working Papers 16-14, IRENE Institute of Economic Research.
    15. Giuntella, Osea, 2017. "Why does the health of Mexican immigrants deteriorate? New evidence from linked birth records," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 1-16.
    16. Monika Sander, 2007. "Return Migration and the "Healthy Immigrant Effect"," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 60, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    17. Christina J. Diaz & Stephanie M. Koning & Ana P. Martinez-Donate, 2016. "Moving Beyond Salmon Bias: Mexican Return Migration and Health Selection," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(6), pages 2005-2030, December.
    18. Touma, Fatima & Hummer, Robert A., 2022. "Race/ethnicity, immigrant generation, and physiological dysregulation among U.S. adults entering midlife," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 314(C).
    19. Santosh Jatrana & Ken Richardson & Samba Siva Rao Pasupuleti, 2018. "Investigating the Dynamics of Migration and Health in Australia: A Longitudinal Study," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 34(4), pages 519-565, October.
    20. Hamilton, Tod G. & Kawachi, Ichiro, 2013. "Changes in income inequality and the health of immigrants," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 57-66.

    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:195:y:2017:i:c:p:105-114. 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.