There is considerable evidence that first generation immigrants to developed countries tend to have lower mortality than does the population as a whole at their destination. This advantage is usually ascribed to a selection process which makes migrants more robust than the local population and/or an acculturation process whereby third-world migrants lose their natural healthy life style as they take on modern urban dietary and living habits. We investigate immigrant-local mortality differences using a 6-year follow-up of the complete Brussels population aged 25-55, as enumerated at the Belgian census, 1991. We show that adult migrants have lower mortality than their native-born counterparts, despite their often poorer living arrangements, work status and human capital. This effect differs by origin group. The effects of age on mortality are similar for all groups, with mortality increasing about 8% a year. This increase is slightly greater for the Belgian born than for immigrants, which makes the selectivity explanation unlikely. Years since migration does not significantly increase the mortality risk for most groups, contradicting the acculturation hypothesis. Thus, explanations ascribing immigrants' mortality advantage to migrant selectivity, pre-modern cultural practices, or an artefact of population recording practices are insufficient. We propose, instead, an explanation based on the meaning migration has for the immigrant, and the hope engendered in the move, particularly that from a lesser to a more developed country. Anson, J., 2004. La sous-mortalite´des migrants. Une enqueˆte suivie de 70 mois sur la population de Bruxelles. Revue Europe´enne de De´mographie, 20: 191-218.Re´sume´. Selon de nombreuses e´tudes, dans les pays de´veloppe´s, les immigrants de premie`re ge´ne´ration ont une mortalite´plus basse que celle des autochtones. Cet avantage est habituellement attribue´a`un effet de se´lection qui fait que les migrants sont plus robustes que la population locale et/ou a`un processus d'acculturation qui fait progressivement perdre aux migrants un mode de vie plus sain au profit de modes de vie et d'alimentation typiques de la vie urbaine moderne. Nous e´tudions les diffe´rences de mortalite´entre immigrants et autochtones at ravers les re´sultats d'une enqueˆte suivie de l'ensemble de la population bruxelloise aˆge´e de 25 a`55 ans au recensement belge de 1991. Les migrants adultes ont une mortalite´plus basse que 191 les autochtones, en de´pit de conditions de logement et d'emploi plus pre´caires et d'un moindre capital humain. L'effet varie selon l'origine des migrants. L'influence de l'aˆge sur la mortaliteé st le meˆme pour tous les groupes, avec une mortalite´augmentant d'environ 8% par anne´e d'aˆge. Ce rythme est le´ge`rement plus rapide pour la population ne´e en Belgique que pour les immigrants, ce qui rend peu vraisemblable l'hypothe`se de la se´lection. Dans la plupart des groupes, le nombre d'anne´es e´coule´es depuis la migration n'augmente pas significativement le risque de de´ce`s, cont...

Russian Jews, particularly men, have a large mortality advantage compared with the general Russian population. We consider possible explanations for this advantage using data on 445,000 deaths in Moscow, 1993-95. Log-linear analysis of the distribution of deaths by sex, age, ethnic group, and cause of death reveals a relatively high concentration of endogenous causes and a relatively low concentration of exogenous and behaviourally induced causes among Jews. There is also a significant concentration of deaths from breast cancer among Jewish women. Mortality estimates using the 1994 micro-census population as the denominator reveal an 11-year Russian-Jewish gap in the life expectancy of males at age 20, but only a 2-year life-expectancy gap for women. Only 40 per cent of the Russian-Jewish difference for men, but the entire difference for women, can be eliminated by adjustment for educational differences between the two ethnic groups. Similarities with other Jewish populations and possible explanations are discussed.

The present paper seeks to re-evaluate explanations for the apparently high level of Jewish fertility in Israel. We suggest that previous explanations, based on ethnic origin or religiosity, are sociologically incomplete, and substitute well established empirical correlational associations for theoretically grounded explanations. We argue that Israel's high fertility stems, directly, from the form and salience of nationalist sentiments in the Israeli conscience collective, which in turn derives from Israel's special position in the Middle East and in the world-economy. Using voting returns from Israel's proportional vote elections, we classify census statistical areas by religiosity and their support for radical nationalist parties. We show that area-level fertility is a function of nationalist support and the area standard of living, and that once these are controlled the effect of religiosity is insignificant. We therefore conclude that the statistical association between fertility and religiosity in Israel is spurious, and that much of the religiosity recorded in fertility surveys is an expression, in consciousness and in the mode of daily living, of a strongly felt nationalist sentiment.Anson, J., Meir, A., 1995. Religiosit6, nationalisme et f6condit6 en Israel. European Journal of Population/Revue Europ6enne de D6mogmphie 12: 1-25, 1996.

Being married reduces the mortality risk of older persons. More generally, living arrangements that include co-residence with a source of support and a close care-giver are associated with a lower mortality risk. We build a detailed typology of private and collective living arrangements, including marital status, and check its association with mortality risks, controlling for health status. Using administrative data from the population register, we identify the living arrangement of all individuals aged 65 years and over living in Belgium as at 1 January 2002, and their survival during the year 2002. Data on health status are extracted from the 2001 census. We use binary logistic regression with the probability to die as outcome and living arrangement, health, age and gender as covariates. Our results show that mortality is more closely associated with actual living arrangements than with marital status. This association is age and gender-specific and remains even at very old ages. Living with a spouse is confirmed to be beneficial for survival but in older age living alone becomes more favourable. Of all living arrangements, older persons living in religious communities experience the lowest mortality risk whereas those living in nursing homes experience the highest risk.

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