This February 2026 article, “Is Immigration Good for Health? The Effect of Immigration on Older Adult Mortality in the United States” is very timely because the healthcare sector is one of the more vibrant sectors in terms of employment. the WSJ writes, “Nearly all of the new jobs added in January were healthcare jobs or positions related to healthcare.” The article says that the healthcare sector – in particular nursing homes – are dependent on foreign-born workers. To the extent that mortality among nursing home residents is affected by the supply of these workers,

Not only do foreign-born workers not displace native born healthcare workers, but they increase the native born healthcare wsatorkforce by providing critical staffing.

One in five frontline nursing home workers are immigrants. One in three home care workers are immigrants.   These workforces are growing at a faster rate than almost all other segments of the workforce.

This is a valuable article as it explains how immigrants flow into the healthcare workforce without displacing native-born workers. I’ve broken that down into five steps:

Step 1. Immigration expands the local pool of working-age adults. When immigration rises in a metro area, the effective supply of potential workers rises with it.

Step 2. Some immigrant origin groups have a much higher propensity to enter health and long-term care jobs, for historical, educational, and credential-transfer reasons. They  include aides, nurses, and physicians.

Step 3. Health care is a labor-constrained sector with persistent shortages. Training pipelines are slow, wages are often administratively, and working conditions deter many native-born workers. When new workers appear, they are absorbed rather than displacing existing staff.

Step 4. Immigrants enter the system at multiple skill levels and over time. Therefore the workforce effects grow gradually rather than appearing all at once.

Step 5. Additional aides and nurses relax bottlenecks inside care organizations. Hospitals and nursing homes can deploy physicians more effectively once support staffing improves.

Saving lives: An increase of 1,000 immigrants causes roughly 142 additional immigrant health-care workers—and about 173 total health-care workers—to appear in the local labor force.