American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Ethnic Attrition and the Observed Health of Later-Generation Mexican Americans
American Economic Review
vol. 106,
no. 5, May 2016
(pp. 467–71)
Abstract
Numerous studies find that U.S.-born Hispanics differ significantly from non-Hispanic whites on important measures of human capital, including health. Nevertheless, almost all studies rely on subjective measures of ethnic self-identification to identify immigrants' U.S.-born descendants. This can lead to bias due to "ethnic attrition," which occurs whenever a U.S.-born descendant of a Hispanic immigrant fails to self-identify as Hispanic. This paper shows that Mexican American ethnic attritors are generally more likely to display health outcomes closer to those of non-Hispanic whites. This biases conventional estimates of Mexican American health away from suggesting patterns of assimilation and convergence with non-Hispanic whites.Citation
Antman, Francisca, Brian Duncan, and Stephen J. Trejo. 2016. "Ethnic Attrition and the Observed Health of Later-Generation Mexican Americans." American Economic Review, 106 (5): 467–71. DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20161111Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- I12 Health Behavior
- J15 Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
- J24 Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity