Selection, adaptation and advantage. Later-life health and wellbeing of English migrants to Australia

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the long-term impact of English adult migration to Australia by comparing health and wellbeing outcomes in later life of English migrants to their counterparts who remained in England (non-migrants) and to native-born Australians. It traces the influence of selection, adaptation and advantage as three mechanisms that can influence migrant health in later life. The analysis utilises data for a cohort aged 60–64 years from the Australian Life Histories and Health (LHH) survey (n = 1088), a sub-study of the Australian 45 and Up Study, in combination with a matched cohort from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) (n = 1139). Social rather than health characteristics were found to play a role in the selection of English migrants. English migrants reported higher subjective quality of life than English non-migrants, and better physical health than the Australian-born, but their mental health outcomes did not significantly differ from the other cohorts. The comparatively better later-life outcomes for the English migrants can partly be linked to advantage, as they hold higher prestige jobs than the Australian-born at lower levels of education.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the ARC Centre of excellence in population ageing (CEPAR), which made this collaboration possible. ELSA was developed by a team of researchers based at the NatCen Social Research, University College London and the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The data were collected by NatCen Social Research. The funding is provided by the National Institute of Aging in the United States, and a consortium of UK government departments co-ordinated by the Office for National Statistics. The developers and funders of ELSA and the Archive do not bear any responsibility for the analyses or interpretations presented here. This research was completed using data collected through the 45 and Up Study (www.saxinstitute.org.au). The 45 and Up Study is managed by the Sax Institute in collaboration with major partner Cancer Council NSW; and partners: the National Heart Foundation of Australia (NSW Division); NSW Ministry of Health; NSW Government Family & Community Services – Carers, Ageing and Disability Inclusion; and the Australian Red Cross Blood Service. We thank the many thousands of people participating in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and the 45 and Up Study. 

Ethics approval

Ethical approval for all the ELSA waves was granted from the National Research and Ethics Committee. The 45 and Up Study was approved by the University of New South Wales Human Research Ethics Committee. The LHH Survey was approved by the University of Sydney Human Research Ethics Committee (#12744).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Bram Vanhoutte http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8032-9214

James Nazroo http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6744-2207

Hal Kendig http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0353-3182

Julie Byles http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3984-6877

Notes

1 ELSA provides standard weights (we used cross-sectional and self-completion weights, depending on the outcome). For LHH, we calculated population weights based on birthplace (England or Australia), gender and level of education for this specific cohort using data provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2011).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [grant number DP 1096778], UK Medical Research Council [grant number G1001375/1] and UK Economic and Social Research Council [grant number G1001375/1].