Does Low Mortality among Foreign-Born Immigrants in England and Wales Extend into Native-Born Migrants?

Matthew Wallace, University of Liverpool

Previous research has found low mortality for migrants compared with the host population in industrialised countries. However, this ‘healthy migrant effect’ is said to wear off across generations. The aim of this paper is to assess whether low mortality found in migrants in England and Wales extends to descendants or whether there is a convergence of mortality to host population levels. I use the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study, a 1% longitudinal sample of the population to study the mortality of 490,000 people using survival analysis. Migrants have low mortality which persists irrespective of ethnic background. However, their descendants show marked variation. Descendants of Black Caribbeans have high mortality which persists after control for social position. Descendants of Indians and Black Other have low mortality which is initially masked by social position and descendants of Pakistanis and Bangladeshi have high mortality which is a result of low social position.