Determinants of migrants’ knowledge about their healthcare rights

ABSTRACT

Although an increasing number of studies emphasise migrants’ knowledge about their healthcare rights as crucial for their healthcare usage, almost none examine the conditions under which migrants acquire this knowledge. This study contributes to the literature by studying the main determinants of migrants’ knowledge about their healthcare rights: Self-interest and necessity, human capital, and social capital. I use unique data collected through the project Migrants’ Welfare State Attitudes (MIFARE), where we surveyed 10 different migrant groups within Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany on their relation to the welfare state, including healthcare. Analysing a total sample of 6,864 migrants using multinomial logistic regression analyses I find that migrants’ knowledge about their healthcare rights depends mainly on their education and language skills. Both factors enable migrants to grasp health-related information and to become informed about their healthcare rights. I also observe a network effect since healthcare experiences of family members contribute to migrants’ healthcare knowledge. Social ties to the co-ethnic community, however, do not explain why some migrants know more about their healthcare rights than others. Lastly, I find large differences between migrant groups, which remain even after controlling for all relevant factors.

KEYWORDS:

• Healthcare
• migrants
• knowledge
• social rights

Acknowledgements

I specifically thank Claudia Diehl and Helga de Valk for their valuable feedback during the WSF final conference in Florence. A big thank you goes also to Simone Schneider who provided me with thorough comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Additional analyses including migrants over the age of 70 show that the results do not differ.

2 Among the Russian population, almost 200 migrants do not identify as Russians but as Ukrainian or another group which belonged to the former Soviet Union.