The Health Benefits of Educational Attainment and Citizenship for Racialized Migrants to France

Abstract

This dissertation investigates ways that racism, a system that oppresses some racial groups while privileging others, may shape relationships between education, citizenship, and health outcomes of migrants to France by comparing these relationships among groups of migrants likely to be racialized as white and as non-white. What makes this investigation both challenging and unique is its focus on France, which espouses a set of colorblind national policies, including the exclusion of racial identifiers from most datasets. This poses a methodological challenge for efforts to understand implications of racialization in the French context. It also presents an opportunity to investigate the relationship between racism and health in a context that explicitly aims to “not see race.” To manage this data environment, I used region of origin as a proxy to estimate migrants’ likelihood of being racialized as white or non-white. I explored whether racism weakened the education-health gradient and whether racism diminished the health benefit individuals received from their citizenship status. I developed a quantitative tool for measuring self-reported experiences of discrimination and explored the extent to which discrimination experiences play a role in the education-health relationship. Results are consistent with previously reported findings that educational attainment is associated with improved health status. They are consistent with the positive relationship that Fundamental Cause Theory posits between increased socioeconomic status and better health for all groups. However, the analysis also found evidence that migrants who are likely to be racialized as non-white may experience less health benefit from their educational attainment compared with migrants who are likely to be racialized as white. Analyses showed evidence that citizenship has a positive association with the self-rated health of migrants. Results from analyses assessing whether the association between citizenship and self-rated health were modified by racialization were not statistically significant. Nonetheless, a significant health disadvantage associated with racialization as nonwhite remained robust in these models after accounting for citizenship status. The positive relationship between citizenship and self-rated health was attenuated by the addition of a measure controlling for French language proficiency, suggesting that language proficiency may explain part of the relationship between citizenship and self-rated health. Finally, I psychometrically validated a discrimination experiences scale among migrants in France, showing that it was reliable and associated with self-rated health in the expected direction. Analysis found evidence that nonwhite migrants and men migrants report higher levels of discrimination experiences compared to their white and women counterparts, respectively. Analyses examined whether discrimination experiences play a role in relationships between racialization, educational attainment, and self-rated health. Findings indicated that higher educational attainment was associated with higher levels of discrimination experiences, the relationship between educational attainment and discrimination was stronger for nonwhites, and discrimination was associated with worse self-rated health. Associations between educational attainment and health remained robust after accounting for discrimination: Discrimination, as measured, influences health but does not explain diminished health benefits of education observed for migrants racialized as non-white in France. Findings presented in this dissertation are inconsistent with the idea that “colorblind” policies prohibiting the collection of data on racial identifiers can eradicate adverse health effects of social processes that racialize migrants. They are consistent with the idea that the eradication of racial health inequities will likely require action beyond eliminating state-defined racial identifiers, to encompass proactive intervention counteracting the social devaluation of nonwhite people.