Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/223235 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
GLO Discussion Paper No. 643
Publisher: 
Global Labor Organization (GLO), Essen
Abstract: 
The Healthy Immigrant Paradox found in the literature by comparing the health of immigrants to that of natives in the host country, may suffer from serious cultural biases. Our study evades such biases by utilizing a destination-origin framework, in which we compare the health of emigrants to that of their compatriots who stay in the country of origin. Isolating cultural effects can best gauge self-selection and host country effects on the health of emigrants with longer time abroad. We study both the physical and mental dimensions of health among European-born emigrants over 50, who originate from seven European countries and now live elsewhere in Europe. We use the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe and apply multi-level modeling. Regarding the physical health we find positive self-selection, beneficial adaptation effects, and effects from other observables for some but not all countries. With the notable exception of the German émigrés, we cannot confirm selection in mental health, while additional years abroad have only weak effects. Overall, living abroad has some favorable effects on the health of older emigrants. The economic similarity of countries and the free intra-European mobility mitigate the need for initial self-selection in health and facilitate the migration experience abroad.
Subjects: 
panel data
physical health
mental health
older population
emigrants
multi-level models
Europe
JEL: 
C23
F22
J11
J14
J15
J61
I12
I14
O52
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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