The Impact of Pre-Migration Institutional Arrangements on Health Disparities: A Case Study of Latin American Immigrants in the U.S.

Social scientists have extensively studied health inequality among immigrants in the U.S., yet the impact of pre-migration institutional arrangements on post-migration health has been underexplored. We propose an institutional sociological approach to examine health inequality among Latin American immigrants, using a life course perspective that integrates pre-migration experiences. Our analysis focuses on the relationship between pre-migration exposure to welfare generosity (social spending on health and education) and democratic expansion in early life and subsequent health outcomes in the U.S. Utilizing data from the 1996-2010 March Current Population Survey, merged with longitudinal country-level sources, we find that exposure to more democratic contexts pre-migration correlates with better health outcomes post-migration, controlling for individual- and country-level factors. Higher spending on health and education improves health only when paired with higher economic development. Our findings underscore the importance of considering pre-migration institutional contexts to understand health disparities among immigrants.