'Cultural Persistence' of Health Capital: Evidence from European Migrants

Joan Costa-i-Font and Azusa Sato

No 5964, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We examine the persistence of the association between subjective health assessments of both first and second-generation migrants with that of their country of origin. To mitigate potential selection bias, we use European data containing records from 30 countries, including over 90 countries of birth and control for timing of migration, selective migration and other variables including citizenship and cultural proxies. Our results show robust evidence of persistence of health assessments, and such associations do not fade over generations. We estimate that a one standard deviation change in ancestral health assessment increases a first-generation migrant’s health assessments by an average of 16%, and that of a second-generation migrant between 11% and 25%. Estimates differ by gender (larger for males) and lineage (larger for paternal lineage). Hence, we can posit that self-reported health largely reflects country-of-origin specific social norms.

Keywords: health assessments; cultural persistence; first generation migrant; second generation migrant (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H23 I18 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_5964

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