Immigrant Labor and the Institutionalization of the U.S.-born Elderly / Kristin F. Butcher, Kelsey Moran, Tara Watson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Butcher, Kristin F.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Moran, Kelsey.

Watson, Tara.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w29520.

NBER working paper series no. w29520

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2021.

Summary:

The U.S. population is aging. We examine whether immigration causally affects the likelihood that the U.S.-born elderly live in institutional settings. Using a shift-share instrument to identify exogenous variation in immigration, we find that a 10 percentage point increase in the less-educated foreign-born labor force share in a local area reduces institutionalization among the elderly by 1.5 and 3.8 percentage points for those aged 65+ and 80+, a 26-29 percent effect relative to the mean. The estimates imply that a typical U.S-born individual over age 65 in the year 2000 was 0.5 percentage points (10 percent) less likely to be living in an institution than would have been the case if immigration had remained at 1980 levels. We show that immigration affects the availability and cost of home services, including those provided by home health aides, gardeners and housekeepers, and other less-educated workers, reducing the cost of aging in the community.

Notes:

Print version record

November 2021.