Decomposing the differences in healthy life expectancy between migrants and natives: the ‘healthy migrant effect’ and its age variations in Australia

Whether the ‘healthy migrant effect’ exhibits different patterns in mortality and morbidity and how such patterns change during the life course have not been adequately understood in the literature. Using the datasets of the Australian Bureau of Statistics, this study presents an in-depth investigation of the healthy migrant effect and its age variations in Australia. Specifically, this study estimates life expectancy (LE) and healthy life expectancy (HLE) of the Australia-born and overseas-born populations, as well as eight Australian migrant groups, and decomposes the HLE differences into mortality and morbidity differences from three dimensions: age, gender and country of birth. The results reveal that compared with the Australia-born population, the overseas-born population enjoys a prominently longer LE; however, they suffer a similar or lower HLE after age 65 and a lower HLE/LE ratio throughout all ages. Young overseas-born adults manifest a more significant health advantage in both mortality and morbidity than early-life and older overseas-born individuals; however, the morbidity advantage of young migrants, particularly those who are female and originated from culturally different countries, declines dramatically with ageing. The results suggest that overall, migrants do not have the same advantage in morbidity as they do in mortality and that health advantages of migrants decreases with time in both dimensions of health and more rapidly for morbidity. The results suggest that pertinent policies are needed to reduce acculturation-related challenges and to mitigate the decline in migrants’ health in the post-migration environment to ensure better quality of life outcomes of migrants.