Chilling Sunsets: Climate Distances and Later-Life Mortality of Immigrants

Abstract Previous research suggests that immigrants sort into environments that resemble their country of origin. However, fewer studies have examined whether this similarity/dissimilarity affects health outcomes. In this paper, we address this question using Social Security Administration death records linked to the full count 1940 census. We explore the effect of temperature distance, i.e. the difference between the average temperature of an immigrant’s birth country and US county of residence, during midlife on later-life longevity. We find that a 5.5 °C change in temperature distance, equivalent to the mean of the sample, is associated with 3.3 months lower longevity. We find that these effects are largely driven by low-educated individuals and those in weather-related occupations for whom climate-specific skills play an important role. Further, we find comparable effects when we turn our focus on cross-county internal migrants of US-born individuals. We discuss the policy implication of these results in light of expected climate-driven migration in the population of immigrants in the US population in the coming decades.