Health Differences between Migrants in the Host Country and Non-Migrants in the Home Country: The Case of Albanians in Italy

Elisa Barbiano di Belgiojoso , Università degli Studi di Milano - Bicocca
Eralba Cela , University of Milan
Eleonora Trappolini, University of Milan-Bicocca

The literature on migrants’ health in high-income host countries highlights their health advantage at arrival, the so-called ‘healthy immigrant effect’. However, the duration of stay abroad has a negative impact on health as migrants generally adopt unhealthy lifestyles and often face several hardships in many life dimensions. Most of the empirical evidence so far has focused on migrants versus natives in the destination countries, although the best match to test the hypothesis of the healthy migrant effect is migrants in the destination country and co-nationals in the origin country. This study analyses differences in health between migrants and non-migrants at the origin focusing on the Albanian-Italy migration corridor. We apply the propensity score matching method to compare the health of these two groups using two nationally representative datasets collected in the two countries. The results highlight a worse health status among migrants and a strong selective effect caused by migration.

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 Presented in Session P1. Postercafe