Effect of Immigration on Depression among Older Natives in Western Europe

José J. Escarce () and Lorenzo Rocco
Additional contact information
José J. Escarce: University of California, Los Angeles

No 12829, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: To our knowledge, no study has examined the effect of immigration on the health of older natives. We use the Study of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to investigate whether immigration affects depression among natives 65-80 years old. Immigration may increase the supply and lower the price of personal and household services, a term that refers to care services and non-care services such as cleaning, meal preparation, and domestic chores. Higher consumption of personal and household services by older natives may help maintain health through a variety of pathways including reduced loneliness, greater participation in meaningful social activities, and improved physical functioning. Using a shift-share IV, we find a beneficial effect of immigration on reducing the number of depression symptoms and the probability of clinically significant depression among older natives. We also find some evidence for the hypothesized mechanisms, although our ability to come to definitive conclusions about mechanisms is limited in our data.

Keywords: aging; immigration; health; social determinants (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I14 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2019-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-eur, nep-ltv and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published - published in: Journal of the Economics of Ageing, 2021, 20, 100341

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp12829.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Effect of immigration on depression among older natives in Western Europe (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12829

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().