Health Insurance Coverage among Children of Immigrants: Does Mother’s Region of Origin Matter?

Kaylin Greene, Pennsylvania State University

The present study examines whether mother’s country of origin predicts child’s type of health insurance (government, private, or uninsured) using a subset of children of immigrants (n = 2085) from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey Kindergarten Cohort. Descriptive results demonstrate large variation within each type of health insurance by mother’s region of origin. For example, 3.4% of European/Canadian children of immigrants are uninsured compared to 15.9% of Latin American children of immigrants. Preliminary results suggest that differences by mother’s region of origin remain in a multivariate context. Results further demonstrate that household and community characteristics (e.g. poverty status, language spoken at home, urbanicity) are independent predictors of the type of health insurance used by children of immigrants. The findings will be critical for researchers and policy-makers by providing an in-depth look at the various individual, household and community characteristics associated with the health insurance coverage of children of immigrants.