Ethnic attrition, assimilation, and the measured health outcomes of Mexican Americans

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 selfidentification 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 positively selected 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. JEL Classification: J15, J12, I14

Ethnic Attrition and the Observed Health of Later-Generation Mexican Americans

“…The evidence suggests that ethnic attritors display health outcomes closer to non-Hispanic whites and away from individuals that identify as Mexican. These results are strongly consistent with further work using additional data sources containing information on parent's and grandparent's place of birth to identify ethnic attrition (Antman, Duncan, and Trejo 2015). As implied by the results here, explicit estimates of the bias introduced by ethnic attrition indicate that conventional estimates of Mexican American health are likely to be biased away from suggesting patterns of assimilation and convergence with non-Hispanic whites.…”

“…This result is strongly consistent with analysis of ethnic attrition rates and intermarriage rates from the Current Population Survey where ethnic identification can be defined using measures of birthplace(Antman, Duncan and Trejo 2015). This suggests that the ethnic attrition measure we construct here relying on self-identification of parents is broadly consistent with measures relying on birthplace or ancestry.…”

Stringent immigration enforcement and the mental health and health‐risk behaviors of Hispanic adolescent students in Arizona

“…Third, Antman, Duncan, and Trejo (2016) and Antman, Duncan, and Trejo (2020) point out that almost all studies that use subjective measures of ethnic self‐identification to identify immigrants' US‐born descendants may be subjected to bias related to “ethnic attrition.” This means that a US‐born descendant of a Hispanic immigrant may fail or opt not to self‐identify as Hispanic. If Hispanic students are more likely to identify themselves as white due to SB 1070, the estimate could be an outcome of ethnic attrition rate change due to SB 1070 but not the impact of the law itself.…”

Psychometric properties of the WHOQOL-BREF in citizens from a disadvantaged neighborhood in Southern Sweden

“…These subgroups have special characteristics since they are not only different from the general population in the host country but also from their country of origin given the duration of their life in the host country. Thus, surveys used in these populations must be contextually validated to avoid bias owing to social circumstances ( Antman et al, 2020 ). In addition, these surveys need to be easy to administer and must not impose a great burden on the respondent ( Watson and Wooden, 2009 ).…”