Working Paper: NBER ID: w26742
Authors: Francisca M. Antman; Brian Duncan; Stephen J. Trejo
Abstract: The literature on immigrant assimilation and intergenerational progress has sometimes reached surprising conclusions, such as the puzzle of immigrant advantage which finds that Hispanic immigrants sometimes have better health than U.S.-born Hispanics. While numerous studies have attempted to explain these patterns, almost all studies rely on subjective measures of ethnic self-identification to identify immigrants’ descendants. This can lead to bias due to “ethnic attrition,” which occurs whenever a U.S.-born descendant of a Hispanic immigrant fails to self-identify as Hispanic. In this paper, we exploit information on parents’ and grandparents’ place of birth to show that Mexican ethnic attrition, operating through intermarriage, is sizable and selective on health, making subsequent generations of Mexican immigrants appear less healthy than they actually are. Consequently, conventional estimates of health disparities between Mexican Americans and non-Hispanic whites as well as those between Mexican Americans and recent Mexican immigrants have been significantly overstated.
Keywords: ethnic attrition; immigrant health; Mexican Americans; health disparities
JEL Codes: I14; J12; J15
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Ethnic attrition (J15) | Health outcomes (I14) |
| Intermarriage (J12) | Health outcomes (I14) |
| Parental health and SES (I14) | Health outcomes (I14) |
| Ethnic attrition (J15) | Underestimation of health disparities (I14) |
| Self-identified ethnic measures (J15) | Perception of health status (I14) |