Rising Black life expectancy in an era of increased immigration

Though American mortality conditions have deteriorated in recent years, one bright spot has been Black life expectancy. Between 1994 and 2019, Black life expectancy rose by 5 years for women and 7 years for men, with most of these gains attributed to improving social and economic conditions for Black Americans. Over this same period, immigration also increased, with immigrants and their children now making up 22% of the Black population. This study shows that rising immigration is directly responsible for nearly 15% of the improvement in Black life expectancy. In 2019, immigrants added 1.5 years to overall Black life expectancy for men and 1.0 years for women. At the working ages, immigration reduces mortality by 15% and is projected to reduce overall Black mortality by 30% in the coming decades. During the COVID-19 pandemic, life expectancy for the US-born Black population with US-born parents fell by 3 years, but the foreign-born Black population experienced a 7-year drop, among the largest year-over-year declines for any major population subgroup. The story about rising Black life expectancy is thus more complicated—there has been a very real story of racial progress, but that story is overinflated when not considering the role of immigration.