Immigrants’ Life Satisfaction in Europe: Between Assimilation and Discrimination
Abstract
Using data from the three rounds of the European Social Survey, this article investigates the disparities in life satisfaction measures between the first- and second-generation immigrants, on the one hand, and the natives, on the other hand, in 13 European countries. Two major theoretical hypotheses explaining the lower level of immigrants’ subjective well-being are tested: the straight line assimilation and the effect of discrimination. The main finding is that immigrants’ relative dissatisfaction does not diminish with time and across generations, which refutes the predictions of the assimilation paradigm. However, when ethnic groups are compared, the discrimination some of them perceive in the host society seems to be a more consistent explanation for their lower life satisfaction level. The effect of discrimination is measured with an attempt to correct for the endogeneity bias that it may lead to by using simultaneous regressions with instrumental variables.
2 Figures
Mirna SAFI
Observatoire Sociologique du Changement (OSC)
Sciences-Po/Cnrs
and
Laboratoire de Sociologie Quantitative (LSQ)
Crest/Insee
Author’s address
Observatoire Sociologique du Changement (OSC)
Sciences-Po/Cnrs
27 Rue Saint-Guillaume
75337 Paris Cedex 07
France
Tel. +33(0)1.45.49.54.78
Fax: +33(0)1.45.49.54.86
mirna.safi@sciences-po.fr
Immigrants’ life satisfaction in Europe: between
assimilation and discrimination
Abstract
Although several recent studies have provided insights into European attitudes towards
immigration, very few have explored the attitudes of immigrants themselves and their
perception of their own lives in the host country. Using data from the three rounds of
the European Social Survey, this article investigates disparities in life satisfaction
measures between immigrant first and second generations on the one hand, and natives
on the other hand in thirteen European countries. Two major theoretical hypotheses
explaining the lower level of immigrants’ subjective well-being are tested: assimilation
and ethnic penalties. The main finding is that migration and the assimilation process do
not account for immigrants’ relative dissatisfaction. When ethnic groups are compared,
the discrimination some of them perceive in the host society seems to be a more
consistent explanation for their lower life satisfaction level. Unlike other studies, the
effect of discrimination is measured here with an attempt to correct for the endogeneity
bias it may lead to by using simultaneous regressions with instrumental variables.
1
Immigrants’ life satisfaction in Europe: between
assimilation and discrimination
Based on the exploitation of European comparative data, this article makes the use of
life satisfaction measures in order to provide a sociological diagnostic of the immigrants’
assimilation process in some European countries. First, some theoretical hypotheses are
presented in an attempt to explain the subjective differences in well-being among ethnic
groups. A measure of these differences among immigrants, immigrants’ descendants and the
host society for thirteen European countries is then presented. Finally, this work tries to relate
the low level of life satisfaction of immigrant first and second generations to their experience
of discrimination.
Theoretical perspectives
While measures of happiness and contentment with one’s life have been compared at length
between countries and social classes, very few studies focus on their disparities among ethnic
groups and even fewer are the ones that link these disparities to the socio-psychological
assimilation of immigrants. A review of the literature suggests two possible schemes of
explanation for the differences in reported well-being between immigrants and natives. The
first one links immigrants’ life satisfaction to the acculturation process and the complex
psychology of migration. The second one puts the stress on the inferior living conditions of
immigration and the discrimination they may perceive in host societies.
From the psychological point of view, migration, establishment in a new country and
assimilation of immigrants go together with sorrow, melancholy and despair (Park 1928 ;
Handlin 1951 ; Handlin 1966). Concepts like acculturative stress have been used by some
studies to designate these immigration “psychopathology” (Berry et al. 1987 ; Berry 2001).
Immigrants’ psychological adaptation is thus regarded as a long term outcome of intercultural
interaction caused by migration. Nevertheless, an underlying hypothesis of assimilation is that
this pain is supposed to diminish over time and generations. The straight line conception of
assimilation attaches indeed a great importance to duration both from the individual and
generational point of view. The assimilation paradigm supposes that immigrants become more
and more similar to natives as years go by, and that assimilation progresses with the thread of
immigrant descendant generations (Abramson 1994 ; Alba 1995 ; Alba and Nee 2003).
However, the importance attributed to acculturation in explaining immigrants’ well-
being in the host society, or even more generally their assimilation process, has been
challenged on theoretical and empirical grounds. Many studies put indeed the stress on the
role of immigrants’ objective living conditions in the explanation for their lower subjective
well-being (Cummins 2000). They rather emphasize structural assimilation as defined in
Milton Gordon’s classical work (Gordon 1964). Gordon’s main argument is that acculturation
is likely to take place first within the assimilation process and that a stage of “acculturation
only” can continue without any of the other types of assimilation, such as identification or
structural assimilation, occurring. Gordon’s scheme thus suggests that migrants can be
acculturated but still experience durable “inferiorization” mechanisms and may be therefore
dissatisfied from their objective life conditions in the host country. Many research works
studied this structural inferior position of immigrants in the social stratification, speaking
sometimes of ethnic penalties (Castles and Kosack 1973 ; Carmichael and Woods 2000 ;
Heath and Yu 2005), and some other times of downward or segmented assimilation (Portes
2
and Zhou 1993 ; Rumbaut 1997 ; Zhou 1997 ; Safi 2008). An important point is that, if their
life chances are perceived and anticipated as sharply and unfairly inferior by the immigrant
populations, dissatisfaction can last, if not be reinforced, over time and generations. A key
variable plays indeed an important role in this framework; the experience and perception of
discrimination.
In a well-known article on life satisfaction differences between Blacks and Whites in
the United-State and in their query of explanations for continuing disadvantage of Blacks
compared to Whites, Thomas and Hugues concluded that “discrimination is a plausible
though untested explanation for the differences we have documented in this paper in
psychological well-being and quality of life” (Thomas and Hughes 1986, p. 840). According
to the authors, this conclusion still held a decade afterwards and had been reinforced by
empirical evidence (Hughes and Thomas 1998). Indeed, epidemiologists, social psychologists
and sociologists have investigated the effects of discrimination on individual well-being. A
direct relation had been demonstrated between perceived discrimination and mental health,
social stress or even depression, especially for young ethnic and racial minorities (Vega and
Rumbaut 1991 ; Neto 1995 ; Finch, Kolody, and Vega 2000 ; Neto 2001 ; Taylor and Turner
2002 ; Sellers et al. 2003). Based on a sample of 5000 immigrant children in Southern
California and South Florida, an investigation conducted by Rumbaut found that perceived
discrimination increases depressive symptoms and that expected discrimination is
significantly associated with a decrease in self-esteem (Rumbaut 1994). Some studies in
social psychiatry and epidemiology suggest that the effect of discrimination on psychological
well-being operates indirectly through diminishing self-efficacy and increasing stress. Ethnic
differences in depression symptoms are accounted for by the role discrimination plays in
producing feelings of helplessness and despair (Hughes and Demo 1989). As Hugues and
Thomas suggested, the negative effects of perceived discrimination should be interpreted in
social psychological terms rather than in psychiatric ones. Ethnic and racial groups do not
register a higher level of mental disorder than Whites, once the social characteristics are
controlled for. Reported subjective well-being should be interpreted as the respondents’
evaluation of the quality of their life experience. Perceived discrimination affects the
anticipation or the perception members of minority groups may have of their life chances and
therefore depress their psychological well-being.
Very few studies were conducted on the psychological well-being of immigrants and
their descendants in Europe. Some isolated research works focused on the situation in a
specific country or for a specific ethnic minority (Neto 1995 ; Werkuyten and Nekuee 1999 ;
Neto 2001 ; Baltatescu 2005). The purpose of this article is to compare the situations of first
and second immigrant generations in some European countries through their own global
evaluation of their lives. Immigrants’ well-being is compared to natives’ one, when the
objective differences are taken into account. Then, if differences are still significant, what
interpretations can be put forward? What do immigrants’ well-being measures tell us about
the assimilation process? And what do they tell us about the discrimination these populations
experience in the host country?
Data
The data used combine information available from the three rounds of the European Social
Survey (ESS); the first was conducted in 2002, the second in 2004 and the third in 2006. ESS
is a cross-sectional multistage survey carried out on probability samples of individuals aged
15 and older and comparing more than 20 European countries
1.
Only countries for which data
from the three rounds are available and with sufficient observations for both immigrant
1
The number of countries varies along with the ESS rounds.
3
individual and their descendents are included in the analysis. It is the case of the countries that
have been experiencing a long standing immigration: Austria (AS), Belgium (BE), France
(FR), Denmark (DK), Germany (DE), the Netherlands (NL), Norway (NO), the United-
Kingdom (GB), Sweden (SE) and Switzerland (CH). Though immigration to Portugal (PT),
Spain (ES) and Ireland (IE) is more recent, it has been occurring fast enough to lead to large
sizes of immigrant groups. They are therefore introduced in the analysis.
Information about the respondent’s country of birth and the one of his/her parents was
used in order to distinguish among three different sub-populations with regard to the link to
migration. The first generation is the one that migrated (i.e. the foreign born population
excluding expatriates). The second generation is composed of native individuals whose
parents were born abroad, while natives who do not have any foreign born ancestor form the
third generation. Within the second generation, a distinction is made between those whose
both parents are foreign born (G2) and those who have only one foreign born ascendant
(G2.5). In order to reduce the magnitude of the age effect in the analysis below, only
individuals aged between 18 and 65 are included in the sample. Figure 1 depicts the principles
of the categorisation of the populations into “generations stemming from migration” while
table 1 gives some general figures on their relative importance in the sample.
Figure 1 Categorisation of ESS population
Born in country
YES
NO
Both parents
born in country
Yes No
Both parents
born in country
Generation
3
Both parents
born abroad
One parent
born abroad
Generation
2.5
Generation
2
Generation
1
Generation
3
(native expats)
4
Table 1 Figures of immigration in the ESS sample
Source ESS round1, 2 and3
Findings
In each of ESS rounds a question about individual life satisfaction was systematically asked.
•
“All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole nowadays?
Answers to these questions were given in a scale from 0 to 10 (0 meaning extremely
dissatisfied and 10 extremely
)
.
Table 2 Life satisfaction of immigrant generations
Life satisfaction
Mean Std. Err.
G1
7.01 0.03
G2
6.89 0.06
G2.5
7.29 0.04
G3
7.28 0.01
All
7.25 0.01
Source ESS round 1, 2 and 3
Immigrants and second generation individuals whose both parents are immigrants
(G2) report lower levels of life satisfaction. Individuals belonging to G2 seem to be even less
satisfied with life as a whole than the first generation immigrants. However, individuals
whose only one parent is immigrant report slightly higher levels of both happiness and life
satisfaction than natives who do not have any immigrant ancestor.
The next section tries to provide possible explanations of these disparities. Regression
analyses are estimated in order to compare natives and immigrants’ well-being taking into
account three sets of co-variables: sociodemographic factors (gender, age, family status and
years of education
2
), socio-economic factors (income, employment status and occupation) and
health factors (subjective response about health status). Different types of ethnic variables are
tested: citizenship and place of birth, immigrant generations, and finally the ethnic group.
2
The variable of education level was not used because it has been reported differently in the United-Kingdom.
The results estimated when controlling for the highest level of education without data for the United-Kingdom
are very close to the ones presented here.
5
Table 3 Life satisfaction determinants: the effects of the control variables
Source ESS round1, 2 and 3
6
Effects of the control variables
As expected, important differences are observed across countries: the country parameters are
always highly significant (table 3). With France picked as a reference, and with the exception
of Portugal, living in any of the other countries selected in this study is associated, other
things being equal, with a higher level of life satisfaction. The highest parameters are those
for Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland, as reported by the international studies on this subject.
ESS rounds do not seem to affect reported well-being. This is probably due to the fact
that the duration of the survey is short (2002 to 2007). The effects of the three sets of
variables developed above seem to be very stable and conform to those reported in the
literature on the determinant of life satisfaction (Frey and Stutzer 2002). Women are more
satisfied with their lives than men. The age effect is non linear; the youngest and the eldest
reporting higher level of well-being.
Life satisfaction increases with annual income. The rise is however more important in
the modest and medium brackets than in the high ones. People who do not report their income
value seem to be in a rather favourable situation. As for occupation, when compared to
unemployment, all occupations are associated with higher levels of life satisfaction and this is
all the more true for the most advantaged ones. Moreover, the unemployment’s negative
effect seems to be lasting; individuals who have experienced unemployment during the last
three months before the survey have a lower probability of being satisfied with their lives.
Finally, the health effect is very significant; it becomes very important for those who
asserted to have a very bad health situation. The introduction of the subjective perception of
health can be criticised: one may think that there are some individual unobserved
characteristics (personality ones) that affect both the probability of reporting low satisfaction
and a bad health situation. Nevertheless, the introduction of a measurement of health, even if
biased by this subjective aspect, remains important in the study of life satisfaction
determinants: for instance it corrects for the strong negative effect that would appear for the
eldest categories if health was not controlled for. As far as the results related to the
immigration issue are concerned, it should be noted that the omission of the health variable
does not change the final results of this research.
Testing for immigrants’ assimilation
According to the assimilation framework, differences between natives and immigrants in life
satisfaction levels should diminish with the latters’ length of stay and over the successive
immigrant generations. Model 1 in table 4 begins by testing the migration consequences; as
expected its effect on individual well-being is significantly negative. Model 2 shows that this
negative impact tends to diminish when immigrants have access to citizenship through
naturalisation
3
. If migration does have a negative effect, does this effect diminish with the
assimilation progress? Models 3 and 4 provide a test for two important components of
assimilation: immigrants’ length of stay and immigrants’ generations.
3
In the following analysis the naturalisation variable won’t be introduced because of colinearity problems. When
the aim is to compare first and second generations, clear problems of colinearity with the citizenship variable
occurs; except for Germany and Switzerland, second generations are almost always citizens in the European
countries studied here, since they are native born. Colinearity becomes also problematic when trying to measure
the length of stay variable; immigrant citizens are most probably those who have spent a long duration in host
country. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the models estimated with the naturalisation variable give very
similar results.
7
Table 4 Life satisfaction determinants: the effect of the assimilation variables
Source ESS, round 1, 2 and .3. OLS regression results, the control variables are included in the analysis (see table 7 in the appendix)
a)Years since migration
As accounted for in many studies, the first year of migration seems to be a “happy” one
(model 3, table 4). The level of immigrants’ well-being decreases afterwards and remains low
for a long time. The Fisher test for equality of coefficients asserts that estimates for 1-5 years,
5-10 years and 11-20 years are not significantly different. Immigrants’ well-being
improvement over time cannot be thus discerned from the data. One has to wait for twenty-
year migration duration to measure a significant increase in immigrants’ life satisfaction level.
Furthermore, even after more than twenty years spent in the host country, immigrants still
register significantly lower life satisfaction than natives.
b) Inter-generational assimilation
The inter-generational assimilation hypothesis does not appear to stand either. When the
second generation is defined by having at least one immigrant parent, consistent improvement
in life satisfaction seems to take place over generations (table 4, model 4). However, a more
precise model (table 4, model 5) which compares G2.5 and G2 reveals that increase in life
satisfaction occurs only for those who have one native parent (G2.5). Even after controlling
for the demographic and socioeconomic variables, the second generation individuals whose
both parents are immigrants still have lower level of life satisfaction than natives with non
immigrant parents. Moreover, the Fisher test for equality of coefficients indicates no
significant difference between the coefficients of G2 and G1. While born in the host country,
descendants of migrants do not seem to be “happier” than their parents, other variables
controlled for. The migration hypothesis does not hold in explaining their relative despair
since they are native born and did not migrate ever. No evidence is detected for the inter-
generational assimilation hypothesis either. These findings suggest that, as far as individual
well-being is concerned, the “psychology of immigration” framework does not provide
satisfactory explanations for disparities between immigrants and their descendants on the one
hand and natives on the other hand. Moreover, these findings also highlight the importance of
the distinction between G2 and G2.5 in immigration studies. Descending from a mixed couple
8
has been shown to facilitate the integration of second generations, namely by increasing their
social capital and thus their labour market outcomes (Rooth and Ekberg 2003 ; Ramakrishnan
2004). In the present article, the results indicate that if one of their parents is native born,
second generation immigrants also have a better level of life satisfaction. It is thus not the
course of inter-generational assimilation that affects the second generations’ “psychology”,
but rather something that seems to be related to the ethnic group they belong to.
Ethnic minorities and subjective well-being
If neither the length of stay nor inter-generational assimilation affects immigrants’ well-being,
the ethnic group membership and its relation to subjective perceptions may make the
difference in explaining life satisfaction disparities between immigrants and natives. All
immigrant groups do not experience the same living conditions in host countries and some of
them may be characterised by durable ethnic penalties that entail their lower life satisfaction.
In order to test this “ethnic penalties” hypothesis, first and second generation immigrants are
distinguished by their country of origin. Unfortunately, the parents’ country of origin is not
given in details in the first ESS round. Only information about the geographic area is
available with the regrettable lack of distinction between eastern and western Europe.
However, the detailed country of origin variable is available for the second and third ESS
waves. Therefore, distinct analyses will be conducted first on the three rounds and second on
the last two ones only. When all available rounds are used, we distinguish between six ethnic
groups coming from Africa, Asia, South-America, Europe, other geographical zones and “non
ethnic” natives. When the study is concerned only with the two last ESS rounds, one can
distinguish between Eastern and Western Europe. In the latter case, special attention has been
also drawn to individual with Turkish origins. We classify first and second generations in
each of these ethnic groups according to the information about their country of origin and/or
their parents’ one. Second generation immigrants descending from mixed couples are
classified according to the origin of their immigrant parent. When they have two immigrant
parents from different origins, their group was decided with a priority given to non-European
origin
4
.
Table 5 Life satisfaction determinants: the effect of the ethnic group
Source ESS, round 1, 2 and .3. OLS regression results, the control variables are included in the analysis (see table8 in the appendix)
Models 1.1 and 2.1 provide a test for the ethnic group effect using either all the available data
or only rounds 2 and 3. In Model 1.1, only immigrants coming from “other geographical
region” (mainly North-America or Australia) have no significant differences in life
4
These cases are very few.
9
satisfaction level than natives. All other ethnic groups seem to have a negative impact on
subjective well-being. African first and second generation immigrants are the most
dissatisfied with their lives. Their coefficient are significantly different from the Europeans’
one which is still less favourable than natives. Model 2.1 draws the attention to the
importance of distinguishing between immigrants coming from Western-Europe and Eastern-
Europe. Only the latters have significant lower life satisfaction levels compared to natives.
This model also provides an estimation of the specific effect of a Turkish origin which seems
to be the most negative effect among all ethnic groups. According to these findings, the lower
life satisfaction level of immigrants and their descendants in Europe seems to be related more
to their belonging to an underprivileged minority group than to their specific experience of
migration and the acculturation problems it may lead to. Compared to natives, Western-
Europeans and immigrants coming from other geographical areas are the only ones that do not
have a lower significant life satisfaction level after controlling for the relevant co-variables.
These groups are high skilled workers and do not suffer from ethnic penalties. Members of all
other groups, especially African and Turkish, experience lower social status and less
favourable objective living conditions. They also seem to be more frequently confronted to
prejudice and hostility from the host society.
Nevertheless, providing a convincing explanation for this depression in first and
second generations’ well-being as related to their belonging to disadvantaged ethnic groups is
difficult if only based on their objective unfavourable living conditions. Indeed, an important
set of socio-economic variables are controlled for in the models above, at the individual level.
A valid justification should therefore come within collective subjective considerations linked
to ethnicity. To what extent does the feeling some first and second generation immigrants
have that their ethnic group is discriminated against account for their lower life satisfaction
levels? Is perceived discrimination the key variable in explaining the relative disadvantage in
the life contentment of immigrants?
Measuring the effect of discrimination
While discrimination is often put forward as a possible explanation of the lower life
satisfaction level of ethnic or racial minorities, measuring its specific effect in a regression
model poses several problems. Indeed, the introduction of the discrimination variable as a co-
variable among others in the life satisfaction model may not be relevant because, unlike clear
exogenous variables as gender or age, the relation between perceived discrimination and life
satisfaction can hardly be considered as directly causal. One may think that other variables
may affect both life satisfaction level and the individual answer to the discrimination
question. Some of these variables can be observed (ethnic group, age, etc.) and some are
unobservable (personality variables). Estimated in a single equation, the effect of perceived
discrimination on life satisfaction may thus be fallacious. An attempt to correct this
endogeneity bias can be conducted using simultaneous equation models (Maddala 1983 ;
Wooldridge 2005). This technique starts estimating a discrimination model and includes
afterwards the predicted value of discrimination in the life satisfaction one. In order for the
interest coefficient (discrimination) not to be biased, at least one variable should be used in
the discrimination equation and excluded from the life satisfaction one (Heckman 1978). This
variable is called instrumental. Though the two stage procedure does correct the endogeneity
bias, it does not directly provide the exact variance-covariance matrix of the estimates. In
order to estimate this matrix correctly and thus give robust significance tests of the
coefficients, the bootstrap technique will be used.
10
Figure 3 Perceived discrimination among ethnic groups
0 .1 .2 .3 .4
Perceived discrimination
TU
AF
SA
AS
OT
EE
WE
G3
Source: ESS, Round 2 and 3
Figure 4 Types of perceived discrimination among ethnic groups
0 .1 .2 .3 .4 .5
Perceived discrimination
TU
AF
SA
AS
OT
EE
WE
G3
Source: ESS, Round 2 and 3
Nationality Ethnicity
Race Religion
Other discrimination types
In ESS data, the discrimination question was asked in a very general way (and not
specifically to ethnic minorities)
5
. Figure 3 shows that members of all groups (even G3) may
5
The question asked is the following “Would you describe yourself as being a member of group that is
discriminated against in this country?”
11
answer positively to this question. The percentage is the most important in the Turkish,
African and South-American groups and the lower in the North–American, European and
native groups.
Providing a closer view on the types of perceived discrimination, figure 4 shows that
they differ considerably among groups. Turkish immigrants regard discrimination as against
their nationality while the race reason is the most frequently put forward by Africans. South-
Americans and Asians also very often perceive the discrimination they are confronted to as
racial. Racial discrimination is however hardly ever referred to by European immigrants and
even less by “non-ethnic” natives
6
.
In order to take into account perceived discrimination as a possible explanation for
immigrants’ lower life satisfaction, models 1.1 and 2.1 were re-estimated with the
introduction of this variable (models 1.2 and 2.2, table 5). The ethnic group effect looses
ground when the discrimination variable is controlled for. Estimates for African, Eastern
European and Turkish are consistently lower than those in model 1.1 and 2.1. They are still
however significantly negative with regard to the native group (except for Turkish
immigrants).
Nevertheless, estimation of the discrimination effect in a single equation may not be
consistent. The endogenous aspect of this variable requires the use of simultaneous equations
with instrumental variables. We used two religion affiliations (Judaism and Islam) to
instrument perceived discrimination. Both of them can be supposed to strongly affect
perception of discrimination. On the other hand, asserting to belong to Judaism or Islam can
hardly be supposed to have a causal effect on life satisfaction level. Judaism and Islam are not
used here as a measure of religiosity; Jews and Muslims are compared not only to unreligious
persons but also to Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists and other persons that may be more or
less religious. Asserting to be affiliated to Islam or Judaism can be understood as being
member of a community that may be perceived as discriminated against, no matter one’s level
of religious beliefs and practices.
7
Table 6 displays the findings of life satisfaction model with the use of simultaneous
equations. Results for the first stage estimation of discrimination are exposed in the appendix.
They show that the instrumental variables do have a highly significant effect on perceived
discrimination, and are therefore valid. Other variables being controlled for, people who
asserted to belong to Judaism or Islam report higher levels of perceived discrimination than
the others. As far as life satisfaction is concerned, the main finding is that when
discrimination is controlled for in the second stage equation, there is no longer a significant
effect of the ethnic group on life satisfaction. The lower life satisfaction of non-European
immigrants, especially of Africans, Turkish and Asians thus seems to be directly related to
their perception of discrimination. A significant effect remains only for Eastern-European.
Members of this group are the only ones whose lower level of individual well-being cannot be
attributed to their feelings of being discriminated against.
6
Multiple answers were possible for the discrimination type question. This explains the difference in the global
rates in figures 5 and 6.
7
Some studies have shown that religiosity has a positive (small) effect on life satisfaction (Ellison 1991).
However, it is not the belonging to a certain religion but rather religious and spiritual beliefs that affects well-
being. In the present work, we suppose tha religious affiliation is not highly correlated to religiosity; one may
assert that he or she is Muslim or Jewish but does not however intensely practice these religions and may even
not have any strong religious belief. In ESS data for example, 47.7% of the persons who declared belonging to a
religion also declared a degree of religiosity smaller than 5 (in a scale from 0 to 10). 11% of them declared a
religiosity score inferior to 2.
12
Table 6 Estimated effect of perceived discrimination (simultaneous equations)
Source ESS, round 1, 2 and .3. OLS regression results, the control variables are included in the analysis (see table s9 and 10in the appendix)
Conclusion
Exploiting ESS data from three rounds and several European countries, first we do
measure differences in life satisfaction levels between immigrants and their descendants on
the one hand and natives on the other hand. These differences do not vanish with immigrants’
length of stay: even after more than twenty years spent in the host country, immigrants still
report lower life satisfaction than natives. A major finding concerns the generational effect;
despite the fact that they were born and socialised in host countries, when both of their parents
are immigrants, second generations seem to be at least as dissatisfied with their life as the first
generation members. This result illustrates the specific socio-cultural disruption second
generation immigrants experience and the fact, well documented in some qualitative
researches, that, more than their parents, they regard their inferior living conditions as
fundamentally unfair (Handlin 1966 ; Portes and Rumbaut 2001).
While studies on immigrants’ well-being often stress the migration negative
psychological effects and the beneficial impact of the assimilation progress, the results of the
previous analysis tends to invalidate the idea of a specific “psychological feature” that may
explain the lower level of subjective immigrants’ well-being. All immigrants are not relatively
dissatisfied with their lives: only the most underprivileged groups have a significantly lower
level of happiness. The lasting differences between life satisfaction of ethnic minorities and
that of natives, in spite of the control for a great set of variables reflecting inequalities of life
conditions, disappear when perceived discrimination is introduced in the analysis. This is all
the more true for African, Asian and Turkish immigrants.
13
Appendix
Table 7 OLS regression with the assimilation variables
14
Table 8 OLS regression with the ethnic variables
15
Tables 9 and 10 Simultaneous equations
a) Regression of discrimination (probit)
16
b) OLS regression of life satisfaction (variance-covariance matrix estimated by
bootstrap)
17
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- Perceptions of discrimination are a menace to persons of immigrant origin, irrespective of the actual discrimination they face. As a stressor, perceived discrimination diminishes well-being (Safi 2010) along with both mental (Nandi, Luthra, and Benzeval 2016) and physical health (Pascoe and Smart Richman 2009). Perceived discrimination also results in a phenomenon called 'stereotype threat'.
[Show description] [Hide description] DESCRIPTION: Based on the ‘integration paradox’ and other literature, this article asks why it is that ethnic boundaries increase in perceptual salience and contestation, while they factually decline. As an answer, it proposes that perceived discrimination increases with unfulfilled aspirations. Analyses based on the six-country comparative EURISLAM survey data of Muslim persons of immigrant origin support the argument: status aspirations as indicated by parental education positively predict perceived discrimination. Moreover, the relation is particularly pronounced among the less educated (as compared to the highly educated) who arguably failed to realize their (parents’) status aspirations. Parental education is also a stronger predictor of perceived discrimination among respondents who regard making their parents proud an important goal in life. A robustness replication and falsification test based on the IAB-GSOEP Migration Sample reconfirms these results.- Going beyond the individual level, these immigrants might even experience vicarious ostracism due to identifying with the group of (German) immigrants or other highly-skilled immigrants and, thus, experience a threat against their ingroup[19][20][21][22]. A strong amount of research in social as well as political sciences has focused on why immigrants are excluded and discriminated against in societies (e.g.,[23][24][25][26], see also[27]) and how structural variables or long-term discrimination affects immigrants' well-being (e.g.,[28][29][30][31][32]). Common to these lines of research is that social exclusion is understood as a general social disadvantage of immigrants over a long period of time[27].
[Show abstract] [Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: A popular initiative in support of regulating future immigration to Switzerland was accepted by the electorate in 2014. Assuming that the initiative acted as an exclusionary threat for current immigrants of Switzerland, we conducted an online survey among a sample of highly-skilled German-speaking immigrants (" expats "). Participants reported having experienced negative affect following the vote. Moreover, having a more left-wing orientation, living in a political constituency that had voted pro-regulation and having proportionally few Swiss friends positively predicted negative affect following the vote. Negative affect was associated with a reported negative change in one's attitudes towards Switzerland, increased considerations to leave the country, and impaired satisfaction with life. In sum, the results suggest that a powerful exclu-sionary threat such as a national vote may be experienced as distressful by highly-skilled immigrants currently living in the country.- Owing to their large numbers, immigrants and their descendants have resulted in European societies becoming increasingly heterogeneous in terms of cultural background, and made the advancement of integration an important policy issue (Coleman 2006;). There is a large and rapidly expanding body of literature investigating different aspects of the lives of immigrants in Europe (Adsera and Chiswick 2007;Solé-Auró and Crimmins 2008;Algan et al. 2010;Rendall et al. 2010;Safi 2010;Bisin et al. 2011;Crul 2013). For several reasons, scholarly interest also extends to the fertility patterns of immigrants and their descendants.
[Show abstract] [Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND An expanding literature documents the childbearing patterns of migrants and their descendants in contemporary Europe. The existing evidence pertains mainly to the northern, western, and southern regions of the continent, while less is known about the fertility of migrants who have moved between the countries of Eastern Europe. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to examine the fertility patterns of first- and second-generation Russians in Estonia, relative to the sending and host populations. METHODS The study draws on the Estonian and Russian Generations and Gender Surveys. Proportional hazards models are estimated for the transitions to first, second, and third births. RESULTS Russian migrants in Estonia exhibit greater similarity to the sending population, with a lower propensity for having a second and third birth than the host population. This pattern extends to the descendants of migrants. However, mixed Estonian-Russian parentage, enrolment in Estonian-language schools, and residence among the host population are associated with the convergence of Russians’ childbearing behaviourwith the host-country patterns. The findings support the cultural maintenance and adaptation perspectives; selectivity was found to be less important. CONTRIBUTION The study focuses on a previously under-researched context and underscores the importance of contextual factors in shaping migrants’ fertility patterns. It raises the possibility that, depending on the childbearing trends and levels among the sending and receiving populations, large-scale migration may reduce rather than increase aggregate fertility in the host country. With the advancement of the fertility transition in sending countries, this situation may become more common in Europe in the future.- Ethnic penalties among minorities have been reported in many studies, as reflected by higher rates of unemployment, lower salaries, and reduced opportunity for promotion at work (e.g. Röder and Mühlau 2011, Safi 2010, Becker 1971Zimmermann 2009).
[Show abstract] [Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: This study explores the recent changes in Western European immigration to the US by integrating several large databases: the US census, American Community Surveys (ACS), the European Social Survey (ESS) as well as the HDI and Gini indexes. Findings show that individuals who were born in Western Europe but whose families have origins outside of Western Europe have been immigrating to and settling in the US in growing numbers. Hence, this study divides the Western European population that immigrates to the US into seven different sub-populations by their ancestries: Sub-Saharan Africans, North Africans and Middle Easterners (MENA), South Asians, Southern Europeans, Eastern Europeans, internal Western European immigrants, and the native Western European population. The study explores the characteristics of these populations before and after immigrating to the US by comparing the different databases. In doing so, this paper shows different self-selection and assimilation patterns among these seven populations.- The existing studies find that individual characteristics and experiences in resettlement countries and countries of origin affect the outcomes of immigrant adjustment (Yang 1994; Safi 2010). Only a few studies that conducted regression analyses have considered these variables.
[Show abstract] [Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: This study investigates the effects of combined human capital of North and South Korea on the economic adjustment of North Korean defectors. Household income and job stability are used as outcome variables. Informal economic activities in North Korea exert a significant and positive impact on economic adjustment in the South. Membership in the Workers’ Party and time spent in the South positively affect household income. Overall, acquired human capital from North Korea appears more important than that obtained from the South. This finding has significant policy implications.- Un estudio de este tipo permitiría poner en relación tanto los factores de riesgo (racismo, experiencias de prejuicios y discriminación), como los factores de protección (edad, sexo, educación, pre-aculturación, estado social en el momento de la salida del propio país, motivación a la migración, expectativas, redes sociales, distancia cultural, como idioma, religión, etc) con la percepción y la valoración personal de los involucrados. Aunque existe alguna investigación empírica cuantitativa sobre el bienestar de los migrantes (Safi, 2010), de momento falta en la literatura una investigación que permita explorar, extrapolar y analizar de forma más profunda la percepción sujetiva del bienestar de la población migrante, y que intente comprender si, en su percepción, tras la experiencia migratoria ha aumentado o disminuido su conjunto de capacidades, si considera haber puesto en marcha recursos y habilidades nuevas y diferentes.
[Show abstract] [Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: RESUMEN: La migración internacional es un fenómeno relevante que caracteriza el momento actual, en el que se ocultan muchas desigualdades. Este artículo examina las principales teorías explicativas presentes en la literatura sobre migración, las organiza y agrupa según la perspectiva que utilizan. Después de indicar las debilidades de cada enfoque, este trabajo subraya algunas grandes separaciones, que resaltan la necesidad de un análisis integrado que considere contemporáneamente los distintos niveles que constituyen este complejo fenómeno. Con esta finalidad se propone utilizar el " Capability Approach " como enfoque multidimensional para el análisis del bienestar y desarrollo humano de los migrantes. El propósito último de este artículo es demostrar la necesidad de involucrar a los propios migrantes, como agentes variados que se diferencian entre sí por una serie de características personales, y que deciden mudarse por una pluralidad de razones, además de estar respaldados por muy diversas condiciones políticas, sociales y económicas. Este trabajo pretende proporcionar la base teórica para una futura investigación empírica, que estudie la satisfacción de los migrantes, analice la influencia de la experiencia migratoria en el desarrollo y conjunto de capacidades de la persona, en término de realización personal percibida y logro de objetivos individuales. ABSTRACT: International migration is an important phenomenon that characterizes the present day, in which are hidden many inequalities. This article examines the main explanatory theories found in the literature on migration, organized and grouped according to the perspective used. After indicating weaknesses of each approach, this paper highlights some large gaps, which highlight the need for an integrated analysis that considers simultaneously the different levels that make up this complex phenomenon. To this end it is proposed to use the " Capability Approach " as a multidimensional approach to analyzing welfare and human development of migrants. The ultimate purpose of this article is to demonstrate the need to involve migrants themselves, as distinctive agents that diverge from each other by a number of personal characteristics, who decide to move for a quantity of reasons, besides to be supported by very different political, social and economic backgrounds. This work aims to provide the theoretical basis for future empirical research to assess the satisfaction of migrants, analyze the influence of migratory experience in development and skill set of the person, in terms of perceived personal fulfillment and achievement of individual goals.
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