Welfare State and Health Disparity Among Immigrants and Native-born in the US and Canada

The welfare state regime is often generalized across labor market and healthcare policy areas in the study of welfare states and health. This study separates labor market and healthcare welfare state benefits to better understand the effect of healthcare welfare on self-perceived health. Also, immigrant health has been a blindspot for the study of the effect of the welfare state on health, especially in the cross-national context. This study uses Canadian Community Health Survey and National Health Interview Survey to study the overarching question: whether social determinants of health outlined by the fundamental cause of disease theory, education, employment status, and household income are associated with perceived health in the same way for Canadians (liberal labor market welfare with universal healthcare) and Americans (liberal labor market welfare and healthcare). Then, the study looks at whether the association between social determinants of health affects native-born and immigrants in the same way or differently and how Canadian immigrants stack up against American immigrants. The study shows that the theory of the fundamental cause of disease holds even in Canada, where universal healthcare exists. However, the income health gradient is not as steep for Canadian immigrants than for US immigrants, suggesting that income matters less for the health of Canadians than Americans. Immigrant groups of both countries see smaller income-related health inequalities than their native-born population.