The Acceleration of Immigrant Unhealthy Assimilation

Osea Giuntella and Luca Stella ()

No 9664, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: It is well-known that immigrants tend to be healthier than US natives and that this advantage erodes with time spent in the US. However, we know less about the heterogeneity of these trajectories among arrival cohorts. Recent studies have shown that later arrival cohorts of immigrants have lower entry wages and experience less economic assimilation. In this paper, we investigate whether similar cohort effects can be observed in the weight assimilation of immigrants in the US. Focusing on obesity, we show that more recent immigrant cohorts arrive with higher obesity rates and experience a faster "unhealthy assimilation" in terms of weight gain.

Keywords: healthy immigrant effect; health assimilation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 J15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 14 pages
Date: 2016-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published - published in: Health Economics, 2017, 26 (4), 511-518

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Journal Article: The Acceleration of Immigrant Unhealthy Assimilation (2017)
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