Socioeconomic Status and Current Cigarette Smoking Status: Immigrants’ Diminished Returns

Abstract

Introduction: Although socioeconomic status (SES) resources influence population and individual health behaviors, socially marginalized groups gain significantly less health from their SES indicators, such as education and income, compared to the socially privileged groups. This pattern is called marginalization-related diminished returns (MDRs). However, most of the MDRs literature is derived from studies that have defined marginalization based on race and ethnicity. As a result, more research is needed on MDRs due to immigration. To extend what is known about MDRs due to immigration, the current study compared a national sample of immigrants and non-immigrants for the effects of education and income on current cigarette smoking of adults in the United States. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study. The 2015 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) enrolled 14,149 individuals who were either immigrants (n=1977; 14.0%) or non-immigrants (n=12,166; 86.0%). The independent variables (IV) were education and income that were treated as categorical variables. The dependent variable was current cigarette smoking. Age, gender, race, ethnicity, marital status, employment, and region were confounders. Immigration was the moderator. Logistic regression was used for data analysis. Results: High education and income were associated with lower odds of current cigarette smoking. However, immigration showed significant statistical interactions with both education and income. These interactions were suggestive of smaller protective effects of high education and income on current cigarette smoking for immigrant than non-immigrant adults. Conclusion: In line with the MDRs, the effects of education and income on tobacco use is weaker for immigrant than non-immigrant adults.

Sex Differences in the Association between Household Income and Children’s Executive Function

“…Suppose income has differential effects on the outcomes of various sub-groups. In that case, income may also operate as a source, rather than a solution, of the existing inequalities [ 22 , 23 ]. The marginalization-related diminished returns (MDRs) literature shows that household income and other SEP indicators [ 24 ] generate unequal outcomes for racial and ethnic subgroups.…”

Are Teachers Biased against Black Children? A Study of Race, Amygdala Volume, and Problem Behaviors

“…Diminished Returns. Then as it was also found for LGBT (Assari, 2019a;, immigrant Assari, 2020e), and even marginalized White families who were living in poor neighborhoods , this pattern is called Marginalization-related Diminished Returns (MDRs) .…”

Parental Education or Household Income? Which Socioeconomic Status Indicator Can Better Reduce Body Mass Index Disparities among Latino Children?

“…Not only Hispanic (Assari, Farokhnia, & Mistry, 2019;Shervin & Ritesh, 2019;Assari, 2019a;Assari, 2018f), but also Native American (Assari & Bazargan, 2019c), African American (Assari, Thomas, Caldwell, & Mincy, 2018), Asian American (Assari, Boyce, Bazargan, & Caldwell, 2020b), LGB (Assari, 2019b), immigrant (Assari, 2020a;Assari, 2020f;Assari, Perez, Johnson et al, 2020), and even marginalized NHW (Assari, Boyce, Bazargan, Caldwell, & Zimmerman, 2020) individuals show MDRs.…”

“…However, the degree to which SES indicators (e.g., household income) reduce the risk of behavioral outcomes varies among diverse demographic groups (Assari, Preiser, & Kelly, 2018;Assari, 2019;Assari, 2020a;Assari, 2020b). As described by a pattern called Minorities' Diminished Returns (MDRs) (Assari, 2018a;Assari, 2017a), most SES indicators (Assari, 2019a), particularly the parental education (Assari, Caldwell, & Bazargan, 2019), generate unequal outcomes for population subgroups (Assari, 2018b;Assari, 2018c).…”