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Life Expectancy Among U.S.-born and Foreign-born Older Adults in the United States: Estimates From Linked Social Security and Medicare Data

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Demography

Abstract

In recent decades, the geographic origins of America’s foreign-born population have become increasingly diverse. The sending countries of the U.S. foreign-born vary substantially in levels of health and economic development, and immigrants have arrived with distinct distributions of socioeconomic status, visa type, year of immigration, and age at immigration. We use high-quality linked Social Security and Medicare records to estimate life tables for the older U.S. population over the full range of birth regions. In 2000–2009, the foreign-born had a 2.4-year advantage in life expectancy at age 65 relative to the U.S.-born, with Asian-born subgroups displaying exceptionally high longevity. Foreign-born individuals who migrated more recently had lower mortality compared with those who migrated earlier. Nonetheless, we also find remarkable similarities in life expectancy among many foreign-born subgroups that were born in very different geographic and socioeconomic contexts (e.g., Central America, western/eastern Europe, and Africa).

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Acknowledgments

Neil Mehta received support from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities Loan Repayment Program (1L60MD006408). Irma Elo received support from the Population Aging Research Center, University of Pennsylvania—NIA P30 AG012836. Michal Engelman is supported by core grants to the Center for Demography and Ecology (P2C HD047873) and to the Center for Demography of Health and Aging (P30 AG017266) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Global Health, Emory University, Claudia Nance Rollins Building, 1518 Clifton Road, Room 7035, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA

    Neil K. Mehta

  2. Population Aging Research Center and Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Irma T. Elo

  3. Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Michal Engelman

  4. Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Diane S. Lauderdale

  5. Office of the Chief Actuary, Social Security Administration, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Bert M. Kestenbaum

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  1. Neil K. Mehta
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Correspondence to Neil K. Mehta.

Appendices

Appendix 1 Classification of U.S.- and Foreign-born for Purposes of Analysis

United States of America

50 States and District of Columbia, U.S. Territories (Guam, Northern Marianas, United States Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Puerto Rico)

Canada

Other Americas

Central America: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama

Caribbean Islands: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Bonaire, Saint Eustatius and Saba, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Cuba, Curaçao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Montserrat, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Maarten (Dutch part), Saint Martin (French part), St. Pierre and Miquelon, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands

South America: Argentina, Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Falkland Islands (Malvinas), French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)

Europe

Northern Europe: Åland Islands, Channel Islands, Denmark, Faeroe Islands, Finland, Greenland, Guernsey, Iceland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Jersey, Norway, Sark, Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands, Sweden, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Western Europe: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, Switzerland

Southern Europe: Albania, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Gibraltar, Greece, Holy See, Italy, Malta, Montenegro, Portugal, San Marino, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

Former Soviet Union: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan

Other Eastern Europe: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia

Africa

Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Réunion, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Tunisia, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania, Western Sahara, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Asia

Eastern Asia: China; China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; China, Macao Special Administrative Region; Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Japan, Mongolia, Republic of Korea

South Central Asia: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka

Southeast Asia: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Vietnam

Western Asia: Bahrain, Cyprus, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, State of Palestine, Syrian Arab Republic, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Yemen

Oceania

Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia (Federated States of), Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Norfolk Island, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Pitcairn, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna Islands

Appendix 2

Table 6 Life expectancy in years at various ages (e x ) among the U.S.-born and foreign-born: 2000–2009 Social Security Administration administrative filesa
Full size table

Appendix 3

Multivariate Negative Binomial Regression Models Predicting Death Rates Among the U.S. Foreign-born

Multivariate regression models were estimated to examine whether the mortality patterns associated with date of social security application and place of birth confound each other (Table 7). All models in Table 7 control for age. Models 1 and 2 include, respectively, date of social security application and place of birth without controlling for the other characteristic. Model 1 confirms that applicants who applied more recently have lower mortality compared with those who applied earlier in time. Model 2 confirms the relative ordering of the foreign-born subgroups with respect to mortality shown in Table 4. These patterns remain largely intact when the two variables are entered in the same model, suggesting that the associations do not confound each other (Model 3).

Table 7 Relative risks of death estimated from negative binomial regression models, ages 65+: 2000–2009 Social Security Administration administrative filesa
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Mehta, N.K., Elo, I.T., Engelman, M. et al. Life Expectancy Among U.S.-born and Foreign-born Older Adults in the United States: Estimates From Linked Social Security and Medicare Data. Demography 53, 1109–1134 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-016-0488-4

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