A life-course perspective on legal status stratification and health

• The life-course perspective can advance research on legal status stratification and health.
• It recognizes dynamic and intergenerational effects of legal status stratification.
• We review four concepts to examine differential outcomes due to legal status stratification.

Scholars have expressed growing interest in the relationship between legal status stratification and health. Nevertheless, the extant research often lacks theoretical underpinnings. We propose the life-course perspective as a theoretical lens with which to understand relationships between legal status stratification and health outcomes. In particular, the life-course perspective guides researchers׳ attention to historical contexts that have produced differential social, political, and economic outcomes for immigrants based on legal status, and to the potentially long-term and intergenerational relationships between legal status stratification and health. We review four key dimensions of the life-course perspective and make recommendations for future directions in public health research on legal status and health.