The Latino threat: constructing immigrants, citizens, and the nation : Leo R. Chavez, Stanford University Press 2008. 272 pp. ISBN-13: 978-0804759342 ()

On average, wealthy people live longer and have less illness and disease than poor people. This has been well documented across countries, within countries at a point in time, and over time as economic growth occurs. And, the positive correlation between income and health is not limited to the bottom end of the income distribution. Indeed, the gradient in health status--the phenomenon that relatively wealthier people have better health and longevity--is evident throughout the income distribution. However, the causes of the relationship between income and health are difficult to untangle in adults, and there is little consensus about the relative importance of mechanisms that lead from low income to poor health versus those that lead from poor health to low income. For this reason, we investigate the association between household income and children's health. By focusing on children, we can eliminate the channel running from health to income: generally, children in the United States do not contribute to family income, so lower earnings of children cannot explain the correlation between poor health in childhood and low family income (although children might reduce parental labor supply, a point we address in our work). In a series of papers, we explore the links running from low income to poor health in childhood, and document the role of health in the intergenerational transmission of poverty: children born into poorer families experience poorer childhood health, lower investments in human capital, and poorer health in adulthood, all of which are associated with poorer employment opportunities and lower earnings in middle age--the time at which they themselves become parents. Socioeconomic Status and Health in Childhood Using several large, nationally representative datasets--including multiple rounds of the National Health Interview Survey, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey--we find that children's health in the United States is positively related to household income, and that the relationship between household income and children's health status becomes more pronounced as children grow older. (1) This continues to be true when we control for a rich set of parental and household characteristics. Moreover, children's health is most closely related to long-run average household income, and it appears that the adverse health effects of lower permanent income accumulate over children's lives. Poorer children arrive at the doorstep of adulthood in poorer health and with lower educational attainment--the latter, in part, as a consequence of poor health. Mechanisms A large component of the relationship between income and children's health can be explained by the arrival and effect of chronic health conditions in childhood. Children from lower-income households are more likely than wealthy children to experience some (although not all) chronic health conditions. In addition, among U.S. children with the same health conditions, those who are richer are reported to be in better health than those who are poorer, suggesting that the chronic conditions of wealthier children are less severe, or are better managed. While this may be because poorer children are less likely to be covered by health insurance, the evidence from research we conducted using data from the Health Survey of England suggests that this is unlikely to be the explanation. (2) Although children in the United Kingdom all have access to medical care through Britain's National Health Service, the income gradient in children's health increases with age by the same amount there as in the United States. We find that the effects of chronic conditions on health status are larger in the English sample than in the American sample, and that income plays a larger role in buffering childrens health from the effects of chronic conditions in England. Children born into wealthier households also are taller on average, at every age, in both the United States and the United Kingdom--partly the result of healthier environments and better nutrition. …

Causes and Consequences of Early Life Health

Happiness and Economics: How the Economy and Institutions Affect Well‐being. Bruno Frey and Alois Stutzer. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. ISBN: 0‐691‐06998‐0, 200 pp. Price: $24.95/£17.95 (paperback)

Between Two Islands: Dominican International Migration. SHERRI GRASMUCK and PATRICIA R. PESSAR. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. 247 pp. $40.00 (cloth), $15.00 (paper). ISBN 0-520-07149-2, ISBN 0-520-07150-6.

Between Two Islands: Dominican International Migration

This report exposes a world of work in which the core protections that many Americans take for granted—the right to be paid at least the minimum wage, the right to be paid for overtime hours, the right to take meal breaks, access to workers’ compensation when injured, and the right to advocate for better working conditions—are failing significant numbers of workers. The sheer breadth of the problem, spanning key industries in the economy, as well as its profound impact on workers, entailing significant economic hardship, demands urgent attention.

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Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers: Violations of Employment and Labor Laws in America's Cities - eScholarship

Foundational theories of international migration rest on the assumption that immigrants maintain reference groups in their country of origin even after settling in a new place, while the transnationalism perspective suggests that immigrants maintain a dual frame of reference This article uses the nationally representative National Latino and Asian American Survey to test the location of immigrants' reference groups I find that the relationship between various measures of subjective social standing and subjective well-being suggests that immigrants maintain simultaneous reference groups in both the United States and the country of origin, supporting transnational theories, and refuting earlier theories [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Looking Down or Looking Up: Status and Subjective Well-Being among Asian and Latino Immigrants in the United States.

Over the past several decades the wages earned by Mexican immigrants stagnated relative to those earned by native Mexican Americans and non-Hispanic whites. In this article we draw on data from the decennial census and American Community Survey to understand why and how this stagnation occurred. We test two competing explanations: a decline in the quality of successive cohorts of Mexican immigrants and a shift in the political economy that increased the number of people lacking full labor rights in the United States while increasing discrimination and exclusion against such people. We present evidence in favor of the latter explanation by showing that observed quality increased rather than decreased and that what happened instead was a systematic decline in the returns to various measures of human capital and a wholesale drop in wages for all immigrants after 2000.

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What happened to the wages of Mexican immigrants? Trends and interpretations

Objective

In this article, I examine how children's and parents’ immigration status (U.S. born, legal immigrant, or undocumented) is associated with children's access to insurance and healthcare and with children's physical health.



Methods

I use the first wave of the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey, which is representative of Los Angeles County in 2000–2001, to analyze data on parents' and children's immigration status, children's health insurance coverage, children's healthcare utilization, and children's health, using logistic and ordered logistic regression models.



Results

I find that undocumented immigrant children face severely constrained access to health insurance and a usual source of healthcare, while children with foreign-born parents have lower global health status than children with U.S.-born parents. Children with undocumented parents may have less access to a doctor diagnosis for common childhood ailments.



Conclusion

These results show that without being eligible for public insurance, many undocumented children lack health insurance and a usual healthcare provider, even in a part of the country with substantial experience serving immigrant families.

Immigration Status and the Healthcare Access and Health of Children of Immigrants

Patterns of child care subsidy use and stability of subsidized care arrangements: Evidence from Illinois and New York

Children of immigrants can benefit from attending prekindergarten, though they enroll less, on average, than children with US-born parents. This detailed report draws on interviews conducted with over 40 prekindergarten directors and staff, directors of early childhood education programs, and other specialists to present strategies for improving prekindergarten enrollment among immigrant families and English Language Learners. This includes strategies for outreach to support prekindergarten enrollment; helping immigrant families overcome language, documentation, and other logistical barriers when enrolling their children in prekindergarten programs; and building trust and good relationships with immigrant parents and designing immigrant- and ELL-friendly programs.

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Julia Gelatt

Papers

Looking Down or Looking Up: Status and Subjective Well-Being among Asian and Latino Immigrants in the United States.

What happened to the wages of Mexican immigrants? Trends and interpretations

Immigration Status and the Healthcare Access and Health of Children of Immigrants

Patterns of child care subsidy use and stability of subsidized care arrangements: Evidence from Illinois and New York

Supporting Immigrant Families' Access to Prekindergarten.