Healthy Immigrant Effect or Over-Medicalization of Pregnancy? Evidence from Birth Certificates

Bertoli, P.; Grembi, V.; Kazakis, P.;
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Veronica Grembi and Pantelis Kazakis

Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers from HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York

Abstract: We investigate the consumption of health care by immigrants by using newborn- and motherlevel data from birth certificates. We use a predictive algorithm based on machine learning to identify the observables affecting birth health outcomes and the use of prenatal care. Using these observables, our empirical analysis pinpoints an advantage of immigrants over natives regarding newborns’ birth weight and a lower use of prenatal care and of c-sections by immigrant mothers. To disentangle the healthy immigrant effect explanation for our results from an over-medicalization of pregnancy explanation, we use an IV approach. Our results support the over-medicalization of pregnancy hypothesis.

Keywords: Healthy Immigrant Effect; Deliveries; Prenatal Care; Consumption of Health care (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I14 J15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big, nep-hea and nep-mig
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:yor:hectdg:17/26

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