Selectivity, Assimilation, and the Limits of Education: Immigrant Mortality Trajectories Among Asian and Hispanic Populations in the United States

Fundamental cause theory holds that education confers durable survival advantages across social contexts, but it remains unclear whether this holds for immigrant populations, who are both selected into migration differently and incorporated into US society differently than the US-born. This study asks whether education’s mortality-protective returns for Asian and Hispanic immigrants match those of their US-born co-ethnics or are instead conditioned by duration of US residence. Using National Health Interview Survey data linked to the National Death Index (1997–2018), we estimate survey-weighted Cox models examining education-stratified mortality trajectories among Asian non-Hispanic ( N = 45,204) and Hispanic ( N = 172,163) immigrants across tenure categories. The results confirm unhealthy assimilation for both groups, as the healthy immigrant advantage erodes monotonically with longer US residence. Importantly, this erosion diverges by education and ethnic groups: Non-college-educated immigrants retain a durable advantage over US-born non-college co-ethnics across tenure, more persistent among Hispanic than Asian immigrants. By contrast, college-educated immigrants’ advantage over US-born college-educated co-ethnics erodes across tenure, more rapidly among Asian than Hispanic immigrants. This may suggest a harsher structural barrier (e.g., bamboo ceiling) facing highly educated Asian immigrants relative to US-born Asians with mortality consequences. For Hispanic immigrants, a stronger initial immigrant advantage offsets this erosion, producing convergence toward parity with US-born Hispanic college graduates rather than a crossover into excess mortality. These findings indicate that education’s protective function is contingent on immigration selectivity, racialization, and US tenure, extending fundamental cause theory to immigrant populations.