Abstract
BackgroundWithin Europe, France stands out as a major country that lacks recent and reliable evidence on how infant mortality levels vary among the native-born children of immigrants compared with the native-born children of two parents born in France.MethodsWe used a nationally representative socio-demographic panel consisting of 296 400 births and 980 infant deaths for the period 2008–17. Children of immigrants were defined as being born to at least one parent born abroad and their infant mortality was compared with that of children born to two parents born in France. We first calculated infant mortality rates per 1000 live births. Then, using multi-level logit models, we calculated odds ratios of infant mortality in a series of models adjusting progressively for parental origins (M1), core demographic factors (M2), father's socio-professional category (M3) and area-level urbanicity and deprivation score (M4).ResultsWe documented a substantial amount of excess infant mortality among those children born to at least one parent from Eastern Europe, Northern Africa, Western Africa, Other Sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas, with variation among specific origin countries belonging to these groups. In most of these cases, the excess infant mortality levels persisted after adjusting for all individual-level and area-level factors.ConclusionsOur findings, which can directly inform national public health policy, reaffirm the persistence of longstanding inequality in infant mortality according to parental origins in France and add to a growing body of evidence documenting excess infant mortality among the children of immigrants in Europe.
Highlights
The origin composition of births in France has transformed in the last few decades
The objectives of this study are to contribute up-to-date findings on ‘how’ and ‘why’ infant mortality varies among the native-born children of immigrants in France for a recent period, by describing initial mortality levels according to detailed parental origins and by assessing the explanatory role of a range of relevant socio-demographic predictors
A sample infant mortality rate (IMR) of 3.31 (3.10–3.52) reflects an average of the lower IMR among children born to two parents born in France [IMR 1⁄4 2.95 (2.73–3.19)] and higher IMR for children born to at least one foreign-born parent [IMR 1⁄4 4.23 (3.79–4.69)]
Summary
Births to at least one foreign-born parent contribute a third of all annual births—one of the largest shares in all of Europe1—and the majority of this share have a parent, or parents, with origins outside of the EU.[2] Despite this growing diversity, France stands out as a European country that lacks up-to-date evidence on how infant mortality levels vary according to parental origins. Results: We documented a substantial amount of excess infant mortality among those children born to at least one parent from Eastern Europe, Northern Africa, Western Africa, Other Sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas, with variation among specific origin countries belonging to these groups In most of these cases, the excess infant mortality levels persisted after adjusting for all individual-level and arealevel factors.
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