Not So Tired and Poor
Immigration and improvements in American life expectancy
Arun Hendi & Jessica Ho
SSM - Population Health, September 2021
Abstract:
Despite the immigrant mortality advantage and the increasing share of the population born abroad, relatively little is known about how immigration has impacted trends in US life expectancy. How immigrants contribute to national life expectancy trends is of increasing interest, particularly in the context of an unprecedented stagnation in American mortality. We find that immigration increases US life expectancy by 1.5 years for men and 1.4 years for women. Over half of these contributions occur at the prime working ages of 25–64. The difference between foreign-born and US-born mortality has grown substantially since 1990, with the ratio of US-born to foreign-born mortality rates nearly doubling by 2017. In that year, foreign-born life expectancy reached 81.4 and 85.7 years for men and women, respectively—7.0 and 6.2 years higher than their US-origin counterparts. These life expectancy levels are remarkable by most standards. Foreign-born male life expectancy exceeds that of Swiss men, the world leaders in male life expectancy. Life expectancy for foreign-born women is close to that of Japanese women, the world leaders in female life expectancy. The widening mortality difference between the US-born and foreign-born populations, coupled with an increase in the share of the population born abroad, has been responsible for much of the increase in national life expectancy in recent years. Between 2007 and 2017, foreign-born men and women were responsible for 44% and 60% of national life expectancy improvements. Between 2010 and 2017, immigrants experienced gains while the US-born experienced declines in life expectancy. Thus, nearly all of the post-2010 mortality stagnation is due to adverse trends among the US-born. Without immigrants and their children, national life expectancy in 2017 would be reduced to its 2003 levels. These findings demonstrate that immigration acts to bolster American life expectancy, with particularly valuable contributions at the prime working ages.
Status of immigrants’ country of origin and Americans’ assimilation expectations
Xian Zhao & Monica Biernat
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Building on perspectives on triadic group relations and status hierarchies, we predicted that Americans would be more likely to expect immigrants from a perceived low-status rather than high-status country of origin to assimilate to the U.S. mainstream culture and that ethnocentrism would mediate this effect (N = 2,246). Using 60 countries/areas as targets, Study 1 showed that perceived country status negatively predicted assimilation expectations for immigrants from that country. In Studies 2 through 3, participants were exposed to a news article which emphasized China’s shortcomings, achievements, or status-irrelevant attributes. In Studies 4 through 7, including one preregistered study, participants were presented with a portrayal of a fictitious country with high (or intermediate) or low status. Compared with high-status (or intermediate status) conditions, American participants were more likely to expect immigrants from a low-status country to assimilate to the United States, and ethnocentrism (causally) mediated these effects even when alternative mediators were controlled. Moreover, assimilation expectations mediated the effect of country status on a tendency to Anglicize a new immigrant’s name. A meta-analysis supported a significant effect of country status on assimilation expectations, and a mega-analysis verified the mediating role of ethnocentrism. This research reveals a status bias toward immigrants, broadening our views on how international relations affect domestic relations, highlighting the importance and malleability of ethnocentrism. The generalizability of current American findings to other countries is discussed.
Immigration Arrests and Educational Impacts: Linking ICE Arrests to Declines in Achievement, Attendance, and School Climate and Safety in California
Jacob Kirksey & Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj
AERA Open, August 2021
Abstract:
With increased tensions and political rhetoric surrounding immigration enforcement in the United States, schools are facing greater challenges in ensuring support for their students of immigrant and Latinx origin. This study examined the associations between county-level immigration arrests and academic achievement, absenteeism, and measures of school climate and safety for students in the California CORE districts. Using ordinary least squares regression analyses with year, grade, school, and student fixed effects, we found that immigration arrests corresponded to declines in academic achievement, attendance, and various measures of school climate and safety for Latinx students and Latinx students who were English learners. We also find small declines in measures of school climate and safety for students who ever received special education services via an Individualized Education Program. Associations were strongest for arrests that occurred during the Trump administration compared with those that occurred during the second term of the Obama administration. Policy implications are discussed.
Did Secure Communities Lead to Safer Communities? Immigration Enforcement, Crime Deterrence, and Geographical Externalities
Songman Kang & B.K. Song
Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
Secure Communities is a recently introduced immigration enforcement policy in the United States, intended to improve public safety by making it easier to identify and deport criminal immigrants and immigration violators. In this article, we examine the effect of Secure Communities on crime by utilizing the variation in its timing of activation across counties. We extend previous research by exploring potential crime spillovers associated with Secure Communities, in which its activation in one jurisdiction affects crime rates in a neighboring jurisdiction. Estimation results suggest that the activation of Secure Communities influenced crime rates in both the activated area and neighboring areas in important ways. We find that Secure Communities led to a significant crime reduction in the activated area if it is also activated in neighboring areas, but no significant local crime reduction is observed if not activated in neighboring areas. Likewise, its activation is often associated with significant crime spillovers into neighboring areas, but this displacement effect is often completely eliminated if Secure Communities is activated in the neighboring areas as well.
The Labour Market Effects of Venezuelan Refugee Crisis in the United States
Christian Gunadi
Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article examines the characteristics, location choice and labour market impacts of the recent inflow of Venezuelan refugees in the United States. A few interesting findings emerge from analysing the data. Unlike previous US immigration experience in the 1980s, the flow of recent Venezuelan refugees into the United States is characterized by an inflow of highly educated individuals with a college education. The finding of the analysis also suggests that the location choice of these refugees within the United States is not mainly driven by labour market conditions in the destination cities. Rather, distance to home country and climatic difference with Venezuela are the main factors in determining the flow of Venezuelan refugees into a particular US city. Consistent with this finding, most Venezuelan refugees choose to settle only in two cities in Florida: Miami and Orlando. Examining the labour market conditions in Miami and Orlando following the flow of Venezuelan refugees, the results of the analysis show a lack of evidence that the labour force participation, unemployment rate and weekly wages of US natives are adversely affected by the inflow.
Impact of state children’s health insurance program on fertility of immigrant women
Kabir Dasgupta, Keshar Ghimire & Alexander Plum Applied
Economics Letters, forthcoming
Abstract:
Between 1997 and 2000, all states in the United States (US) enacted the State Children’s Health Insurance Programme (SCHIP) to provide publicly funded health insurance coverage for children in low-income families. However, only 15 states including the District of Columbia initially chose to provide coverage for children of newly arrived immigrants in their SCHIP. We exploit the resulting state and time variation in the implementation of the programme in a difference-in-differences framework to estimate the effect of a publicly funded children’s health insurance benefit on immigrant women’s fertility. While estimates from full samples show that the net effect of the programme was indistinguishable from zero, we find a significant positive effect on the fertility of unmarried immigrant women, both at the extensive and at the intensive margin. Our findings have important policy implications for societies experiencing a persistent decline in fertility.
The Effect of Immigration Enforcement on School Engagement: Evidence From 287(g) Programs in North Carolina
Laura Bellows
AERA Open, August 2021
Abstract:
During the past 15 years, immigration enforcement increased dramatically in the U.S. interior. There is a growing recognition that immigration enforcement in the U.S. interior has spillover effects onto U.S. citizens. I examine the impacts of a type of partnership between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local law enforcement, 287(g) programs, on school engagement within North Carolina. In North Carolina, nine counties were approved to establish 287(g) programs, and another 15 applied but were not approved to participate. I use a triple difference strategy in which I compare educational outcomes for different groups of students in these two sets of counties before and after activation of 287(g) programs between 2003/2004 and 2012/2013. I find that 287(g) programs decrease school engagement by decreasing attendance. This effect appears to be driven by increabes in chronic absenteeism (missing 15 or more days per year).
Revisiting the Integration Hypothesis: Correlational and Longitudinal Meta-Analyses Demonstrate the Limited Role of Acculturation for Cross-Cultural Adaptation
Kinga Bierwiaczonek & Jonas Kunst
Psychological Science, September 2021, Pages 1476-1493
Abstract:
When moving to a new country or living in that country as ethnic-minority-group members, individuals have to relate to different cultural spheres. Scholars and practitioners commonly agree that how people acculturate influences their psychological and sociocultural adaptation. Integration (or biculturalism), which involves engagement in both one’s heritage culture and the dominant mainstream culture, is considered the most beneficial acculturation strategy. But how robust is the evidence for the role of acculturation in adaptation? Here, we present a reanalysis of a previous meta-analysis of mostly correlational studies (k = 83, N = 23,197) and a new meta-analysis of exclusively longitudinal studies (k = 19, N = 6,791). Results show that the correlational link between acculturation and adaptation is much weaker than previously assumed and that longitudinal evidence is minuscule at best. Our findings suggest that empirical support is still lacking for the most basic premises of acculturation theory.