California Center for Population Research

Previous studies have shown that immigrants are generally healthier than the native-born populations of receiving societies, a result generally attributed to the positive selection of migrants with respect to health. This hypothesis, however, has not been adequately evaluated due to data limitations. Using high-quality longitudinal data from Indonesia, I explicitly examine the health selectivity hypothesis, also referred to as the healthy migrant hypothesis, with respect to internal migration. Specifically, I study whether pre-migration health status affects the likelihood of migration by comparing those from the sending population who do and do not move. Results show that migrants in Indonesia do tend to be selected with respect to health and that this aspect of selection is robust to household unobserved heterogeneity. However, the strength and direction of the health-migration association vary by different types of migration and distinctive dimensions of health.