Abstract
This study reports on the role of English language proficiency (ELP) in immigrants' health and economic integration in the USA. Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) estimation of a mixed bivariate ordered probit specification of annual earnings and medical care spending is conducted using a representative sample of immigrant families' data from the 2015-2017 US National Health Interview Surveys (NHIS). The results reveal that annually, limited ELP has an increasingly negative impact on immigrants' propensity to earn income (-$44.83, -$50.66 and -$56.97), while simultaneously positively impacting at a decreasing rate their propensity to spend on medical care ($8.09, $6.09 and $4.32). Furthermore, a positive and significant 7.2% correlation coefficient is found between annual earnings and medical care spending propensities, suggesting that the income effect of higher earnings from increased ELP outweighs the substitution effect leading to higher health consciousness and preventive care spending. Thus, policies aimed at raising immigrants' families ELP in the USA would not only contribute to their effective socio-economic integration, but also strengthen the US workforce and economy in the long run.
Highlights
According to the UN’s International Organization, for Migration (IOM) the world is faces the highest levels of forced displacement recorded since World War II, with a dramatic increase in the number of refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced people across various regions of the world
In order to understand the unconditional relationships between English language proficiency (ELP), annual earnings and medical care spending, we perform the chi-square test of independence between the three dimensions of immigrants integrations, with the results summarized in table (5)
Our findings show that limited English language proficiency leads to higher propensities of medical care spending in the U.S immigrant population
Summary
According to the UN’s International Organization, for Migration (IOM) the world is faces the highest levels of forced displacement recorded since World War II, with a dramatic increase in the number of refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced people across various regions of the world. This study, which follows Shields and Price (2002), Chiswick and Miller (2010), and Elsayed and DeGrip (2018), brings these two aspects of immigrants’ integration together, and describes the welfare implications of immigrants English language proficiency in the U.S it introduces the concept of “immigrants’ health-economic integration6”, and investigates the health care market and labor market outcomes of immigrants with various levels of English language proficiency The general question it seeks to address is:. In pluralist democracies, such change should not be perceived as a threat to stability but as part of the flexibility and openness of the society, which is constantly developing, striving for greater equality and more opportunities for all members (Elsayed and De Grip, 2018) In such context, immigrants’ health-economic integration/inclusion can be described as a policy goal for governments, to eliminate immigrants’ exclusions from the health care market and the labor market of the host country
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