Immigrant Health (Dis)advantage in the Labor Market

Dr. Hui Zheng, Department of Sociology
Rank at time of award: Associate Professor

Despite relatively lower socioeconomic status and less access to health care, immigrants tend to display more favorable health outcomes, including mortality, than native-born populations of destinations. This is so- called “immigrant health advantage” or “Hispanic paradox” for Hispanic immigrants. At the same time, immigrants tend to have unstable and lower paid jobs, limited job opportunities, and worse work conditions. It is unclear whether their health advantage may persist or diminish in this precarious labor market. The overall objective of this project is to investigate the effects of precarious labor market on mortality conditioning of native-born and foreign-born populations. More specifically, this project intends to reach three aims. Aim 1:Examine the mortality consequence of unemployment among the foreign-born of different origins (Europe, Asia, Africa, and Central and Latin America) compared to their corresponding native-born populations in the U.S.Aim 2: Examine the mechanisms shaping these different mortality consequences, including human capital and economic resources, job related network resources, family and social capital, health endowment, and health behavior. Aim 3: Examine how the mortality consequence of unemployment may evolve along the duration of residency, which will further make clear the mechanisms shaping these patterns. The data come from IPUMS NHIS 1992-2009 surveys linked to mortality data through the year 2011. This project is innovative because it focuses on a topic that has not been sufficiently studied in current social, population, and health sciences. This project will shed light on several important topics in demography and population health areas, including labor market, immigration, and health. Results from this project will have important implications on the health consequences of work experiences, the mechanisms shaping different health profiles for foreign -born and native-born populations, and the temporal variations in these health profiles.