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A life-course perspective on legal status stratification and health We propose the life-course perspective (LCP) as a framework that offers a comprehensive theoretical lens for studying the health consequences of legal status stratification and for understanding legal status stratification as a social and structural determinant of health (Viruell-Fuentes, 2007). The life-course perspective draws attention to the effects of social and structural factors experienced across the individual life-course and among subsequent generations, all placed within a historical context (Elder, Johnson, & Crosnoe, 2003; Lynch & Smith, 2005). Despite the emphasis on social and structural factors, the broad framework of LCP can encompass the processes described in the broader immigrant health literature, such as the “immigrant paradox”. Specifically, the LCP allows scholars to bridge exposures related to legal status stratification with more proximal behavioral or cultural factors that may affect health (Lara, Gamboa, Kahramanian, Morales, & Hayes Bautista, 2005). For example, undocumented immigrants may experience disproportionate occupational and economic stressors, which may strain family networks and contribute to the erosion of family gonadotropin releasing hormone agonist (Menjívar, 2000), with potentially adverse consequences for health (Rivera et al., 2008). Moreover, the deportation and detention of undocumented individuals may threaten the family and community networks that are often cited as a driving force behind observed health advantages among immigrant populations (Brabeck & Xu, 2010). Scholars have applied the life-course perspective to the study of multiple forms of inequality in relation to health outcomes, including racism (Gee, Walsemann, & Brondolo, 2012; Hertzman, 2004) and socio-economic status (Kahn & Pearlin, 2006; McLaughlin et al., 2011). Over a decade ago, Jasso (2003) proposed the application of a life-course perspective to immigrant health, with an empirical example that took into account the experiences of legal migrants arriving to the U.S. Recently scholars have continued to emphasize the importance of bringing a life-course perspective to the field of immigrant health more generally (Acevedo-Garcia et al., 2012), and several studies have applied dimensions of the life-course perspective to analyses of legal status and health with a focus on older migrant adults (de Oca, García, Sáenz, & Guillén, 2011; Gubernskaya, Bean, & Van Hook, 2013; Miller-Martinez & Wallace, 2007). We expand upon this previous work to consider the health impact of legal status stratification on undocumented migrants, formerly undocumented migrants, and those with temporary or ‘liminal’ legal statuses (Menjivar, 2006), as well as the family members of those who are undocumented, given the health-related vulnerabilities faced by these groups (Castañeda & Melo, 2014; Dreby, 2012; Suárez-Orozco et al., 2011).
Historical time and place The political and social conditions at a given historical time and place shape the definition of legal status categories and their demographic composition, as well as the significance of legal status for health. As a result, the social, political, and economic context of particular historical periods and locations provide a critical context for understanding the possible influence of legal status categories on health. Legal status categories are created by policies that have changed over the course of U.S. history in concert with shifting social attitudes towards specific immigrant groups and changes in the political and economic climate (Motomura, 2007, 2014). For example, during the 19th and early 20th centuries there were no numerical restrictions on migration from Europe, while there was formal exclusion of migrants from China. These divergent policies were based on explicitly racialized social attitudes, as well as economic and political factors (Motomura, 2007). Due to the open migration for European immigrants, there was no unauthorized migration – or “undocumented” status as we know it today – until quotas on migration from this region were first established in 1921, during a time of post-war economic downturn (Tichenor, 2002).