PROJECT SUMMARY
In this project, we study the mortality experience of the U.S. foreign-born population in unprecedented detail
leveraging innovative individual-level data linkages between census and Social Security records that contain
data on over 5 million foreign-born persons. Between 2000 and 2020, the foreign-born population of the U.S.
grew by 42% reaching 44 million individuals in 2020. The population has become increasingly diverse by birth
country and race/ethnicity. Despite the recent and projected growth and increasing diversity of the foreign born,
available data to study their mortality have been limited. We do not know the full extent to which foreign-born
subgroups are experiencing differing levels of healthy/unhealthy assimilation and how factors such as birth
country, age at migration, economic mobility, and race/ethnicity are associated with their mortality.
Our proposed project is designed to overcome the challenges faced by previous research by: (1) including a
large sample of the foreign born permitting detailed analyses by country and world region of birth and by
race/ethnicity; (2) avoiding the numerator/denominator bias that is present when using vital statistics data and
census records; (3) capturing deaths occurring outside of the U.S., which avoids “statistical immortality”; and (4)
including the role of earnings trajectories as well as other markers of integration (age at migration, duration of
U.S. residence, type of education, citizenship, language ability, and household characteristics) to understand
key life-cycle determinants of foreign-born mortality, (5) measuring the contribution the foreign born to widening
geographic inequalities in U.S. mortality, and (6) measuring the role of internal migration on mortality.
We will construct a unique individual-level database from census records linked to longitudinal information on
death records, earnings, and U.S. place of residence. Aim 1 will provide the first set of country and world region-
specific life expectancies for the foreign born across all major sending countries. We test the roles of birth
country-specific, migration-related, and post-migration factors on mortality. Aim 2 tests the role of earnings
trajectories on mortality by country/world region of birth. We test whether downward (upward) earnings
trajectories are associated with higher (lower) mortality, thereby providing novel evidence on healthy and
unhealthy assimilation. We develop a detailed portrait of immigrant earnings trajectories for all major foreign-
born subpopulations. Aim 3 identifies the foreign-born contributions to widening geographic inequalities in U.S.
mortality by race/ethnicity. We further estimate the role of internal migration on foreign-born and U.S.-born
mortality and compare the mortality of U.S.-born internal migrants to foreign-born movers and non-movers by
race/ethnicity. Given the uniquely large sample of foreign-born persons and the rich longitudinal structure of
these data, this project will provide the most comprehensive study of U.S. foreign-born mortality to date
contributing to knowledge about the key social, migration, and economic factors that shape foreign-born health
as they incorporate into American society.
