How does origin affect migrant mortality advantage in Spain?

In high-income countries, migrants tend to have lower mortality compared with natives. It is necessary to understand such a phenomenon, known as "the migrant mortality paradox", to design better social policies aimed at migrants. This paper aims to study the impact of the region of birth on the differences in migrant mortality advantage in Spain using data for the period 2002-2019. To do so, we estimated death rates by origin for ages 30-90 years, smoothed the crude curves using B-splines and compared the resulting temporary life expectancy. Results show a large mortality advantage for Asian and Latin American migrants (both men and women) over the Spanish native population. African males also have significant advantages, followed by North American males. African and North American females and European males and females show an overall disadvantage. Women benefit from a lower mortality advantage over their native counterparts, compared with male migrants from the same origin. In conclusion, the relatively higher advantage of migrants from low-income countries compared with migrants from industrialised countries is more likely due to differences in selection processes. The same appears to apply to the difference between men and women migrants; migrant men may be subject to more severe selection procedures compared with their accompanying women. Alternatively, women may encounter more discrimination than men during the migration process, particularly those from Africa.