{"title":"Parents' legal status and children's health insurance: Evidence from DACA","authors":"Nhan Tran","doi":"10.1111/coep.70009","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Fear of immigration enforcement may deter undocumented parents from enrolling their US-born children in public health insurance. This paper examines the effect of providing legal status to parents through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program on health insurance among US-born children. Using a regression discontinuity design, I find DACA eligibility among likely undocumented mothers increases Medicaid enrollment for US-born children by five percentage points. I find no similar evidence among those with likely undocumented fathers. The estimates are local to individuals near the age threshold. There is suggestive evidence of heterogeneity in effects across groups of DACA-eligible mothers.</p>","PeriodicalId":47364,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Economic Policy","volume":"44 2","pages":"234-252"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9000,"publicationDate":"2026-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/coep.70009","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Contemporary Economic Policy","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/coep.70009","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/8/22 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Fear of immigration enforcement may deter undocumented parents from enrolling their US-born children in public health insurance. This paper examines the effect of providing legal status to parents through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program on health insurance among US-born children. Using a regression discontinuity design, I find DACA eligibility among likely undocumented mothers increases Medicaid enrollment for US-born children by five percentage points. I find no similar evidence among those with likely undocumented fathers. The estimates are local to individuals near the age threshold. There is suggestive evidence of heterogeneity in effects across groups of DACA-eligible mothers.
期刊介绍：
Contemporary Economic Policy publishes scholarly economic research and analysis on issues of vital concern to business, government, and other decision makers. Leading western scholars, including three Nobel laureates, are among CEP"s authors. The objectives are to communicate results of high quality economic analysis to policymakers, focus high quality research and analysis on current policy issues of widespread concern, increase knowledge among economists of features of the economy key to understanding the impact of policy, and to advance methods of policy analysis.
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