Second, sociological research has shown that migration status combines in complex ways with SES to affect health. Immigrant populations differ markedly in SES upon arrival in the United States (Rumbaut 1996). For example, Asian and African immigrants have markedly higher levels of education than other immigrant groups and U.S.-born whites. In contrast, immigrants from Mexico, have low levels of education at the time of migration to the U.S. and face major challenges with socioeconomic mobility in the second generation. Sociological research has shown that these differences in SES importantly affect patterns and trajectories of health. For immigrant populations largely made up of low SES individuals, traditional indicators of SES tend to be unrelated to health in the first generation but exhibit the expected associations in health by the second generation (Angel, Buckley, and Finch 2001). In addition, the SES of immigrants upon arrival to the U.S. appears to be a determinant of the immigrant group's trajectory of health. For example, the gap in mortality between immigrants and the native born is smaller for Asians than for whites, blacks and Hispanics
