Measuring adaptation with immigrants’ subjective wellbeing: evidence from European countries7

Abstract

The socio-economic adaptation of immigrants in Europe is the source of great concern both to experts and policy-makers. The literature on the subject regards the traditional approach to measuring the adaptation of foreigners to the host country, invloving the use of indicators such as full-time employment or income level, as insufficient, and advocates a more diversified and inclusive approach. Our study answers this call by taking into account the subjective wellbeing (SWB) of individuals (life satisfaction scores) while researching the socioeconomic adaptation of immigrants in Europe. The main aim of the study is to empirically assess the socio-economic adaptation of firstgeneration immigrants and persons with immigrant background (i.e. those who have at least one immigrant parent) in European states. To this end, we analyse the determinants of the SWB based on the data from the European Social Survey conducted in 2018 in 29 European countries on the population aged 15+. In our model, we use the religious affiliation and religiosity of individuals as an additional measure of cultural identity. We also take into account control variables such as labour market participation, education, marital status and disability. We apply Ordinary Least Squares regression, a method commonly used in analyses of this type. We find that the first-generation immigrant status does not impact directly on the SWB, i.e. the life satisfaction scores of foreign-born persons are similar to those of the local community. What has a more significant influence is the immigrnats’ religious affiliation: Muslims are the religious group dissatisfied with life to the largest extent. Yet, their life satisfaction increases considerably among the second-generation immigrants, i.e. persons who have at least one foreign-born parent. Therefore, our results confirm that the new generation of Muslims with immigrant background born in European host countries is better adapted to the socioeconomic conditions than their parents’ generation or native Muslims.