Assimilation and Health: Evidence From Linked Birth Records of Second- and Third-Generation Hispanics.

This study explores the effects of assimilation on the health of Hispanics in the United States, using ethnic intermarriage as a metric of acculturation. I exploit a unique data set of linked confidential use birth records in California and Florida from 1970-2009. The confidential data allow me to link mothers giving birth in 1989-2009 to their own birth certificate records in 1970-1985 and to identify second-generation siblings. Thus, I can analyze the relationship between the parental exogamy of second-generation Hispanic women and the birth outcomes of their offspring controlling for grandmother fixed effects as well as indicators for second generation's birth weight. Despite their higher socioeconomic status, third-generation children of second-generation intermarried Hispanic women are more likely to have poor health at birth, even after I account for second-generation health at birth and employ only within-family variations in the extent of assimilation. I find that a second-generation Hispanic woman married to a non-Hispanic man is 9 % more likely to have a child with low birth weight relative to a second-generation woman married to another Hispanic. These results largely reflect the higher incidence of risky behaviors (e.g., smoking during pregnancy) among intermarried Hispanic women.