Health Care Inequities: Immigrant Generational Status of Children across Diverse Subpopulations

Ethan J. Evans, University of California, Davis

The Affordable Care Act seeks to ensure health care access for uninsured Americans. This paper expands work finding differential patterns of access based on race/ethnicity or nativity, by highlighting theoretical links between access and assimilation. I examine inequities for children across immigrant generations for four U.S. racial/ethnic groups, testing potential explanations for racial/ethnic/generational differences using the 2007 National Survey of Child Health. More time in the country (subsequent generations) does not mean equal increases in access for children of all groups. The percentage of second generation Hispanic children with insurance is twice that of first generation, but the comparative change for Black children is much lower. Socioeconomic status does not explain away inequities. Language emerges as a key factor influencing coverage for Hispanic children. With the growing number of children of immigrants in the United States, this project establishes a baseline by which to evaluate implementation of health care reform.