Antoine MARSAUDON – Do Immigrants Reduce the Gender Mortality Gap ? Evidence from France

Antoine Marsaudon est maître de conférences en sciences économiques à l’Université Paris-Cité, membre du Liraes et chercheur associé à l’Irdes. Ses travaux de recherche portent sur les déterminants sociaux de l’état de santé et de l’accès aux soins.

Abstract

Our study builds on two strands of the economic literature. First, health economics studies show that immigrants are in better health than natives on arrival in the receiving countries, but this health advantage decreases over times, partly due to more-physical demanding jobs. Second, labor market studies show that immigrants facilitate a shift in the occupational structure of native workers, who progressively move into less-physical demanding jobs. In this study we investigate whether immigration participate to increase the health of native individuals. To do so, we combine several sources of annual administrative data providing information on native health, socio-economics, and medical-supply characteristics at the departmental level. Relying on a two-way fixed effects model, our results suggest that the higher the share of immigrants in a department, the higher the age at death of native men. We, however, do not found any significant association between the share of immigrants in a department and the age at death of native women. These findings might be explained by the gender-based occupational specialization, where men work in more physically demanding jobs than women. This finding provides first evidence for the French context, that immigrants participate to reduce the gender mortality gap.

Interested ? Contact Marie Pelé (marie.pele@univ-catholille.fr)