Survival Differences among Native-Born and Foreign-Born Older Adults in the United States

Matthew E Dupre, Danan Gu and James W Vaupel

PLOS ONE, 2012, vol. 7, issue 5, 1-8

Abstract: Background: Studies show that the U.S. foreign-born population has lower mortality than the native-born population before age 65. Until recently, the lack of data prohibited reliable comparisons of U.S. mortality by nativity at older ages. This study provides reliable estimates of U.S. foreign-born and native-born mortality at ages 65 and older at the end of the 20th century. Life expectancies of the U.S. foreign born are compared to other developed nations and the foreign-born contribution to total life expectancy (TLE) in the United States is assessed. Methods: Newly available data from Medicare Part B records linked with Social Security Administration files are used to estimate period life tables for nearly all U.S. adults aged 65 and older in 1995. Age-specific survival differences and life expectancies are examined in 1995 by sex, race, and place of birth. Results: Foreign-born men and women had lower mortality at almost every age from 65 to 100 compared to native-born men and women. Survival differences by nativity were substantially greater for blacks than whites. Foreign-born blacks had the longest life expectancy of all population groups (18.73 [95% confidence interval {CI}, 18.15–19.30] years at age 65 for men and 22.76 [95% CI, 22.28–23.23] years at age 65 for women). The foreign-born population increased TLE in the United States at older ages, and by international comparison, the U.S. foreign born were among the longest-lived persons in the world. Conclusion: Survival estimates based on reliable Medicare data confirm that foreign-born adults have longer life expectancy at older ages than native-born adults in the United States.

Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0037177 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 37177&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:plo:pone00:0037177

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0037177

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().