Longer and Healthier Lives: Health and Mortality Trajectories of International Immigrants and Native-Born Residents in Finland

Eugenio Paglino , University of Helsinki
Silvia Loi, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Pekka Martikainen, University of Helsinki

While international immigrants often exhibit a mortality advantage over native-born populations, whether this extends to health outcomes, particularly past working ages, remains debated. Previous research has been limited by a reliance on cross-sectional health data. This study leverages Finnish register data to simultaneously examine the health and mortality trajectories of immigrants and native-born residents. We followed 31,577 foreign-born individuals and an age-matched sample of 92,281 native-born Finns, tracking mortality and the incidence of seven chronic conditions between ages 30 and 80. We find that immigrants in Finland live longer and in better health than their native-born counterparts. While their advantage tends to narrow with age, it seldom reverses before late adulthood. We observed a socioeconomic gradient in health and mortality for both populations; however, this gradient was flatter among immigrants. Consequently, the foreign-born advantage in longevity and health was most pronounced among manual workers and smallest among upper-level white-collar workers.

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 Presented in Session 85. Migrant Mortality