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Happy Moves? Assessing the Link between Life Satisfaction and Emigration Intentions
Author(s) -
Ivlevs Artjoms
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
kyklos
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.766
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1467-6435
pISSN - 0023-5962
DOI - 10.1111/kykl.12086
Subject(s) - emigration , happiness , life satisfaction , world values survey , externality , demographic economics , subjective well being , european social survey , quality of life (healthcare) , psychology , association (psychology) , survey data collection , productivity , economics , social psychology , political science , economic growth , statistics , mathematics , politics , law , psychotherapist , microeconomics
Summary It has been shown that higher levels of subjective well‐being lead to greater work productivity, better physical health and enhanced social skills. Because of these positive externalities, policymakers across the world should be interested in attracting and retaining happy and life‐satisfied migrants. This paper studies the link between life satisfaction and one's intentions to move abroad. Using survey data from 35 European and Central Asian countries, I find a U‐shaped association between life satisfaction and emigration intentions: it is the most and the least life‐satisfied people who are the most likely to express intentions to emigrate. This result is found in countries with different levels of economic development and institutional quality. The instrumental variable results suggest that higher levels of life satisfaction have a positive effect on the probability of reporting intentions to migrate. The findings of this paper raise concerns about possible ‘happiness drain’ in migrant‐sending countries.