ArticleDemography2020
The Association Between Legal Status and Poverty Among Immigrants: A Methodological Caution.
Article in Demography, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Medicaid expansion for undocumented adults and its association with health insurance coverage among noncitizens in California, 2017-2023.Health affairs scholar · 2026Article
- Migration Status Gradients in Immigrant Poverty: A Comparison of Imputation Methods.Sociological methods & research · 2025Article
- Comparing imputation approaches for immigration status in ED visits: Implications for using electronic medical records.Health services research · 2025Article
- Using machine learning to impute legal status of immigrants in the National Health Interview Survey.MethodsX · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Using nationally representative survey data, this research note examines the association between immigrant legal status and poverty in the United States. Our objective is to test whether estimates of this association vary depending on the method used to infer legal status in survey data, focusing on two approaches in particular: (1) inferring legal status using a logical imputation method that ignores the existence of legal-status survey questions (logical approach); and (2) defining legal status based on survey questions about legal status (survey approach). We show that the two methods yield contrasting conclusions. In models using the logical approach, among noncitizens, being a legal permanent resident (LPR) is counterintuitively associated with a significantly greater net probability of being below the poverty line compared with their noncitizen peers without LPR status. Conversely, using the survey approach to measure legal status, LPR status is associated with a lower net probability of living in poverty, which is in line with a growing body of qualitative and small-sample evidence. Consistent with simulation experiments carried out by Van Hook et al. (2015), the findings call for a more cautious approach to interpreting research results based on legal status imputations and for greater attention to potential biases introduced by various methodological approaches to inferring individuals' legal status in survey data. Consequently, the approach used for measuring legal status has important implications for future research on immigration and legal status.
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Registered trials
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