Life satisfaction in young immigrants and Australian young people: Change with socio-economic status and time

Abstract

Background Life satisfaction is considered to be an important indicator of subjective well-being of young people throughout the world. The period of adolescence to young adulthood is also recognised as a significant developmental transition and potentially challenging time for young people. It is believed that several factors at individual, family and societal levels influence life satisfaction of young people at different stages. The literature reveals that life satisfaction of young people of different immigrant status might change from adolescence to the stage of young adulthood. This study aimed to compare the life satisfaction of advantaged and disadvantaged young people of immigrant and Australian families and consider how the life satisfaction of individuals in these groups changes over time with age and differences in socio-economic status. Methods The quantitative study was conducted using de-identified secondary data of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamic of Australia (HILDA) survey, which was collected annually from 2001 to 2009. The study used Wave one, two and nine of HILDA data in two separate analyses, namely, (a) cross-sectional and (b) longitudinal. The cross-sectional study was performed during the first stage, using linear regression to analyse representative data on life satisfaction collected in 2001. The findings of this section revealed how multi-level factors of individual, family related and societal elements were associated with life satisfaction levels among the three subgroups of young people. The longitudinal element of the study analysed two waves of survey data collected in 2002 and 2009 using a hierarchical linear regression model with a random intercept for each individual, to estimate life satisfaction changes and associated variables at the two time points. The changes in socio-economic status and other factors were examined in variation of life satisfaction over a seven year period. The random-effect regression analysis was applied to determine the association between life satisfaction and key determinants, including variables related to individual, family and societal elements. This model would allow for between-individual and within individual differences for all related variables. The results of the findings were examined with reference to the life course perspective to explain how changes in specific indicators of socio-economic status and other multi-level factors were associated with life satisfaction in the three subgroups of young people. Results The descriptive analysis found that young people in the Australian and immigrant subgroups reported a high level of life satisfaction in wave 1 of the HILDA data sets. The results also found that there was a gender difference in life satisfaction level of young people of different immigrant status. First-generation immigrants who were female and disadvantaged, stated a significantly lower level of life satisfaction than the male group (b = -1.077, p l05). The results also illustrated that life satisfaction in males of first-generation immigrants in the middle group was lower than it was for females, however this pattern was reversed in the second-generation immigrant group. Therefore, there is a difference between life satisfaction of males and females between first and second-generation immigrants. The longitudinal element of the study also revealed that young people with improving socio-economic status (b = 0.116, p l002) from wave 2 to wave 9, experienced a significantly better level of life satisfaction than to those who remained at the same socio-economic level. This finding suggests that improving socio-economic status across time can be effective in improving the life satisfaction of young people. The finding of the longitudinal survey revealed that life satisfaction decreased significantly in wave 9 compared to wave 2 (b = -0.151, p l0.001). It was found that 78% of life satisfaction variation from wave 2 to wave 9 in young people was due to changes over time within individuals. This result indicated that the transition from adolescence to young adulthood is a very important factor in the life satisfaction variation of young people. The three principles of life course theory, namely, lsocio-historical and geographical locationr, ltiming of livesr and lsocial ties to othersr, underpin the findings of this study. The implications of these results for improving the health and well-being of young people are discussed in Chapter 6.