U.S. Immigrants’ Multidimensional Integration and Later-Life Health

• In Event: 20862 - Section on International Migration Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 17: Immigration Integration (2)

Abstract

Older immigrants in the U.S. experience higher levels of cognitive impairment and physical disability, which presents a puzzle given that recent immigrant arrivals are healthier than the native-born. While studies have often attributed any erosion of the “healthy immigrant effect” on health to acculturation, it remains an open question which kind of acculturation is consequential for which health outcomes. This study begins filling this gap by constructing multidimensional measures of immigrant integration (e.g., economic, occupational, residential, etc.) and examining each of their association with measures of physical and cognitive health in later life. Preliminary findings indicate that as immigrants live in the U.S. for longer, they do not necessarily integrate on different dimensions at the same speed: earnings integration happen faster, followed by occupational integration, whereas residential integration lags behind; linguistic and civic integration happens steadily over time. These various measures of immigrant integration are also differentially associated with later-life health: cognitive health appears particularly influenced by economic and linguistic dimensions of integration, whereas occupational and residential integration is only minimally associated with physical and cognitive health.

Author

• Leafia Zi Ye, University of Toronto