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Migration as a test of the happiness set‐point hypothesis: Evidence from immigration to Canada and the United Kingdom
Author(s) -
Helliwell John F.,
Shiplett Hugh,
Bonikowska Aneta
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
canadian journal of economics/revue canadienne d'économique
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.773
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1540-5982
pISSN - 0008-4085
DOI - 10.1111/caje.12474
Subject(s) - happiness , immigration , life satisfaction , test (biology) , demographic economics , economics , set (abstract data type) , kingdom , subjective well being , point (geometry) , personality , selection (genetic algorithm) , psychology , political science , social psychology , mathematics , paleontology , geometry , computer science , law , biology , programming language , artificial intelligence
Strong versions of the set‐point hypothesis argue that subjective well‐being measures reflect primarily each individual's own personality and that deviations are temporary. International migration provides an excellent test, since life circumstances and subjective well‐being differ greatly among countries. With or without adjustments for selection effects, the levels and distributions of immigrant life‐satisfaction scores for immigrants to the United Kingdom and Canada from up to 100 source countries mimic those in their destination countries, and even the destination regions within those countries, rather than those in their source countries, showing that subjective life evaluations are substantially driven by life circumstances and respond when those circumstances change.