Immigrant workers save aging economies but face financial struggles in their own senior years

Leafia Ye’s research investigates how and why, as immigrant men in the US reach their 60s, their income relative to the native-born shrinks to just over 80 per cent. This gap continues to widen with age, so that by ages 75 to 79, the same immigrants only receive 68 per cent of what their native-born counterparts do. This pattern of “aging into disadvantage” was present in the data across education levels and racial and ethnic groups; it affects not only senior immigrants, but also younger generations who often become their parents’ retirement plan when broader social support is unavailable.. Ye calls for strong public policy to address these issues.