Aging and Race
Paper Session
Monday, Jan. 4, 2021 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM (EST)
- Chair: Perry Singleton, Syracuse University
Healthy Aging among Older Mexican Immigrants
Abstract
A large literature has documented the so-called Hispanic Health Paradox (HHP), that is, the epidemiological finding that some health outcomes of Hispanics residing in the United States are comparable to, and in some cases better than, those of non-Hispanic whites. In this paper, we use nationally-representative data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to examine the evidence in support of the HHP for Mexican-born men and women above age 50 living in the US. Analyses based on self-reports of diagnoses of chronic conditions and health behaviors yield evidence consistent with a weak form of the HHP for all health outcomes in the sample of males. Instead, Mexican immigrant women have significantly higher odds of diabetes than NH whites. Overall, Mexican immigrant men have a more favorable health profile, relative to their non-Hispanic white counterparts, than do Mexican immigrant women. The disparity between genders may reflect actual health differences. It may also be a data artifact due to the fact that Mexican immigrant women are more likely than men to interact with the healthcare system, and hence less likely to have undiagnosed health problems. Using indicators of chronic conditions based on biomarkers and anthropomorphic measures available in the HRS, we find evidence consistent with underdiagnoses of diabetes for both Mexican immigrant men and women and of hypertension for Mexican immigrant men. The weak form of the HHP holds for some health outcomes but not others, with Mexican immigrants of both genders displaying an advantage in hypertension, no advantage in obesity, and a disadvantage in diabetes. Moreover, the health disparities between Mexican immigrant men and women disappear once the biomarker-based measures are considered.Incarceration and Black-White Cohort Differences in Male Employment, Earnings, and Social Security Wealth
Abstract
This paper provides a birth-cohort-level empirical analysis of how the rise of institutionalization (and incarceration, in particular), especially among African-American men, has affected labor force participation, employment, and earnings. The analysis focuses on men born between 1955 and 1982 and draws on data from the 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010 decennial censuses, combined with the 2001-2016 waves of the American Community Survey (ACS), which sample the institutionalized population. Accounting for the number of former prisoners in the non-institutionalized population and non-random selection into institutionalization, the estimates indicate that a one percentage point increase in the percent of black men who were former prisoners in a state is associated with a one-third of a percentage point reduction in the labor force participation rate and a one-half of a percentage point reduction in the employment rate for black men. Based on these estimates, the rise in the number of former prisoners in the non-institutionalized population between 1980 and 2016 can explain about one-quarter of the decline in labor-force participation and real earnings for black men over the same period, and substantially more of the decline in employment. Furthermore, there is a pronounced shift in the shape of the age-earnings profile for men who came of age when crack cocaine entered the United States and sentencing grew stricter, concentrated among men born in the mid-to-late 1960s. For these birth cohorts, the peak in the age-earnings profile shifts from the late 40s to the late 30s, and for African-American men does not return to the late 40s until the youngest sample cohorts. These same affected cohorts experienced the labor-market effects of the Great Recession in what otherwise would have been their peak earning years, further hollowing out their age-earnings profile.The Effect of Social Security Retirement Benefits on Food-Related Hardship among Older Americans
Abstract
This study examines the effect of Social Security Retirement Benefits on food-related hardship, particularly at the early retirement age of 62. Claims for Social Security Retirement (Old Age) Benefits spike at the early retirement age of 62, the earliest age of eligibility for retired worker benefits. Rust and Phelan (1997) attribute this spike to individuals with limited wealth and private pensions who are unable to retire before age 62. This implies that individuals who claim Social Security benefits at the early retirement age are more likely to face food-related hardship and that Social Security benefits may reduce food-related hardship at age 62 and beyond.The Effect of Opioids on Health and Physical Mobility
Abstract
One of the most prominent responses to the opioid crisis in the U.S. has been the creation and enhancement of prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) and the regulation of pain management clinics known as pill mill laws. Evidence suggests that these policies have been mostly effective in reducing opioid prescription rates, nationally, among Medicare and Medicaid enrollees. Given the national emphasis to curtail opioid prescriptions and the variation in chronic illness requiring pain relief by age and race/ethnicity, it is important to understand the marginal productivity of opioids on health and physical functioning, overall and across demographic groups. While past literature has documented variation in opioid medical use and misuse by age and race, less in known on the marginal productivity of prescription opioids themselves on health and physical functioning. In this article, I use data from the United States Renal Data System (USRDS) on patients diagnosed with End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) to study the effect of prescription opioids on health and physical functioning of a highly comorbid US population. I exploit variation in the timing of the adoption of PDMPs and pill mill laws to conduct a difference-in-differences analysis of the effect of these policies on prescription opioid use and measures of health (eg: anxiety, weight gain, and cholesterol levels) and measures of physical mobility. I stratify all my analyses by age and race/ethnicity.Discussant(s)
Patrick Button
,
Tulane University
Kosali Simon
,
Indiana University
Damon Jones
,
University of Chicago
Joanna Lahey
,
Texas A&M University
Ethan Lieber
,
University of Notre Dame
JEL Classifications
- J1 - Demographic Economics
- J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor