International migration desires related to subjective well-being

Abstract

Previous research on the determinants of international migration has largely focused on objective factors, such as income. We instead use subjective well-being (SWB) to explain international migration desires, an expressed willingness to migrate. We find that individuals with higher SWB have lower international migration desires. At the individual level, the SWB-migration relationship appears to be more robust than the income-migration relationship. At the country level, national average SWB better indicates international migration desires for rich countries, while income performs better for poor countries. We thus demonstrate the feasibility of employing subjective measures to study at least one aspect of an important social outcome, migration. JEL codes: F22, O15, I31

Happiness and the emigration decision

“…First, even if these results tend to be statistically significant, in several studies the estimated effects are substantively small. Second, the results based on correlational evidence, as reported in [4], [5], [6], and [8], are not sufficient to prove causal effects running from subjective well-being to the emigration decision. Reverse causality and unobserved factors affecting both phenomena are two reasons why the estimated correlations between subjective well-being and willingness or intention to migrate may not reflect true causal effects.…”

“…One of the most comprehensive correlational studies addressed the link between subjective well-being and the desire to migrate on a global scale [4]. Drawing on the data from the Gallup World Poll survey covering 161 developing and developed countries for 2007-2012 (more than 400,000 interviews), the study analyzed responses to several survey questions capturing the desire to migrate to another country.…”

“…An emerging strand in the literature-which is the focus of this paper-has turned to the migrants' countries of origin and sought to understand the relationship between happiness and the emigration decision [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]. These studies have relied on data from large-scale multicountry individuallevel surveys, which contain information on both the respondents' subjective well-being (usually, happiness or life satisfaction) and some proxy of emigration decision (usually, willingness or intention to migrate; see Capturing the emigration decision).…”

Emigration, remittances, and the subjective well-being of those staying behind

“…Second, we contribute to the broader literature exploring the links between migration and subjective well-being (typically measured with life satisfaction and happiness). 6 While existing studies have examined the relationship between immigration and the subjective well-being of migrantreceiving populations (Akay et al 2014a, 2017a, Betz and Simpson, 2013Ivlevs and Veliziotis 2018;Longhi 2014), the impact of home-country conditions on migrants' happiness abroad (Akay et al 2017b), migration's consequences for migrants' subjective well-being , as well as the effects of subjective wellbeing on the decision to emigrate (Cai et al 2014;Graham and Markowitz 2011;Ivlevs 2015;Otrachshenko and Popova 2014), we add to this literature by looking at the effects of emigration on the well-being of those staying behind in the countries of origin.…”

In transit: The well-being of migrants from transition and post-transition countries

“…For instance, while migration may affect happiness, those dissatisfied with their lives are more likely to migrate (Cai, Esipova, Oppenheimer, & Feng, 2014;Chindarkar, 2014;Graham & Markowitz, 2011;Otrachshenko & Popova, 2014). 12 Moreover, if migration is costly, relatively well-off individuals will be more likely to migrate and a cross-sectional comparison would simply pick the effect of pre-migration status on post-moving income.…”