Unsuccessful Subjective Well-Being Assimilation Among Immigrants: The Role of Faltering Perceptions of the Host Society

M Hendriks,M J Burger

doi:10.1007/s10902-019-00164-0

Abstract

Immigrants in developed countries typically fail to assimilate in terms of their subjective well-being, meaning that their happiness and life satisfaction do not substantially increase with their length of stay or across generations, and therefore their subjective well-being remains lower than that of natives. This finding contrasts with migrants’ own expectations and the predictions of straight-line assimilation theory, along with the general improvement of immigrants’ objective living conditions with their length of stay. Using European Social Survey data, we show that the gradual development of less positive perceptions of the host country’s economic, political, and social conditions is associated with less positive subjective well-being trajectories among first generation immigrants and across migrant generations in developed European countries. This negative association is particularly strong for immigrants whose societal conditions strongly improved by migration and immigrants who arrived after childhood. However, compared with natives, the more positive societal perceptions of first-generation immigrants are associated with a subjective well-being advantage. We attribute these findings to immigrants’ growing aspirations and expectations that follow from their habituation to better conditions in their host country and fewer (more) comparisons to the inferior (better) conditions of the people in their home (host) country. Our findings suggest that delaying or decelerating the process of immigrants’ faltering societal perceptions is a promising pathway to improved subjective well-being assimilation and reduced frustration about their perceived lack of progress.

Highlights

The subjective well-being of international migrants in developed countries generally does not increase as their length of stay in the host country progresses (Safi 2010; Obućina 2013; Stillman et al 2015; Calvo and Cheung 2018; Hendriks et al 2018)
Hypothesis 3 The more positive societal perceptions of first-generation immigrants are associated with a subjective well-being advantage over second-generation immigrants
The subjective well-being of immigrants in developed European countries generally does not improve with their length of stay or across generations, despite objectively improving living conditions and contrasting their own expectations and the rationale of “straightline” assimilation theory

Summary

Introduction

The subjective well-being of international migrants in developed countries generally does not increase as their length of stay in the host country progresses (Safi 2010; Obućina 2013; Stillman et al 2015; Calvo and Cheung 2018; Hendriks et al 2018). The second generation does not have higher subjective well-being than their immigrant parents (e.g., Safi 2010) These outcomes imply that many immigrants fail to assimilate to the higher subjective well-being levels of native populations in developed host countries (Hendriks 2015).. Migrants view moving abroad as an investment into their future and that of their children They may reasonably expect to face initial challenges, such as adjusting to a new culture, learning a new language, finding their desired job, and building a new social life, but overcoming these hardships is generally expected to lead to improvements in well-being in the long run. It is apparent that immigrants’ objective reality differs considerably from their subjective reality—in terms of well-being assimilation—a distinction that Stillman et al (2015) directly observe by comparing immigrants’ steeply rising earnings to their declining subjective well-being

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