Research Group

Migration and Health Inequalities

At a Glance Projects Publications Team

Project

The Intersection of Life-Course Events and Migration Background: Consequences on Health Inequalities

Conducted by Silvia Loi

When studying immigrants’ health, we usually limit our focus on the role of economic circumstances and the work environment, given that much disadvantage is rooted in them. However, adverse events (like job loss, divorce, and the death of a family member) or critical events (like marriage, family formation, and retirement) may pave the way for differential healthy aging between immigrants and nonimmigrants.

This project advances our understanding of the extent to which these life-course events account for the health gap between immigrants and nonimmigrants at old ages: It focuses on multiple adverse and critical events that immigrants experience over the life course, in combination with multiple sources of socioeconomic disadvantage. It does so by looking at the full health trajectory over the life course, including the health trajectory before these events occurred. The aim is to bring light into the conditions that favor the onset of poor health outcomes and thus to explain the mechanisms that lead to a faster health deterioration of immigrants compared to nonimmigrants as they age in the receiving countries. 

Publications