SPOUSAL MIGRATION AND LATER-LIFE HEALTH FOR OLDER MEXICAN WOMEN

PWP-CCPR-2013-013

Abstract

This article expands on the extant literature related to the effects of family member migration to the US on the health of women in Mexico with a focus on long-term effects of spouses’ migration to the US on the hypertension, diabetes, and depression outcomes for a nationally representative sample of Mexican women 50 years and older who report ever being married or in a consensual union (n=6253). The results suggest that there are no significant differences in the later-life health outcomes for women with and without a history of spousal migration to the US if those women are currently in a union with their spouse. Women who report spousal migration and are not currently in a union (i.e. divorced, separated, or widowed) have significantly greater odds of doctor-diagnosed diabetes (OR: 1.58, p<0.01) and hypertension (OR: 1.38, p<0.05) later in life compared to women not currently in a union and with no spousal migration to the US. These results are robust to controls for aspects of marital and family history (e.g. total years married, number of live births). These significant results of spousal migration to the US on the diabetes and hypertension outcomes for non-married women did not appear to be mediated by the strain of raising children alone. There were significant interaction effects by women’s own labor and migration history, and current decision-making power. There were no significant effects of spousal migration to the US on an indicator of pastweek depression. The results speak to the importance of family migration history in shaping later-life chronic disease outcomes for older women in Mexico, in combination with their marital histories. These results underscore the importance of US migration as a social determinant of health for an aging Mexican population.