The Life Satisfaction of Immigrants in Canada: Does Time Since Arrival Matter more than Income? (original) (raw)
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Journal of Happiness Studies, 2015
ABSTRACT Studies of immigrant well-being primarily focus on economic outcomes. However, immigrants often cite a desire to improve their general quality of life as their main motivation for migrating. This study compares life satisfaction among recent immigrants in Canada with life satisfaction in their country of origin and with the Canadian-born population, and provides an evaluation of the role that national-level economic and social factors play in immigrants’ life satisfaction. The results indicate that most immigrant groups have higher life satisfaction than their source country counterparts. The majority of immigrant groups examined also have life satisfaction scores similar to those of the native-born population, a finding that indicates that national-level conditions matter for immigrants’ life satisfaction.
Quality of Life of Immigrants in Canada
Canadian Ethnic Studies, 2020
Quality of life research is a key component of policymaking. Research on this topic can embrace two approaches-social or health-related perspectives. With a focus on the social aspect, this study uses cross-sectional data from the Canadian Community Health Survey to explore differences in the level of satisfaction and quality of life of immigrants and non-immigrants. To examine changes over time, recent immigrants are compared with earlier immigrants who are further compared with non-immigrants. Some subjective indicators are selected from the available data and an index of quality of life is computed using the methodology developed by the United Nations Development Program for measuring human development. Findings of the study show that among the three groups, earlier immigrants are least satisfied with life in general but most satisfied with their financial situation. The score on the quality of life index is lowest for earlier immigrants mainly due to deterioration in their health. Non-immigrants enjoy the best quality of life attributed particularly to their higher income and participation in leisure and social activities.
Acta Sociologica, 2019
With a focus on the immigrant population, this study examines how the association between a relative income position and life satisfaction varies when the comparison group changes. Drawing data from Understanding Society in the UK between 2009 and 2015, this study first shows that after migration, income comparisons with the mainstream and co-ethnic groups in the host country matter more than that with the source-country population for one's life satisfaction. Furthermore, the relevance of comparison groups to life satisfaction varies across immigrant generations. Income comparison with the source-country population is more relevant to life satisfaction of the 1st generation, whereas 1.5 and 2nd generations consider income comparisons within the host country more relevant. In particular, favourable income comparison with the mainstream group in the host country is the most relevant to life satisfaction of the 2nd-generation, followed by the 1.5-generation, and last by the 1st-generation immigrants.
Life Satisfaction of Immigrants: Does Cultural Assimilation Matter?
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014
To investigate empirically the association between a direct measure of assimilation with a host culture and immigrants' subjective well-being, this study uses data from the German SocioEconomic Panel. A positive, significant association arises between cultural assimilation and immigrants' life satisfaction, even after controlling for several potential confounding factors, such as immigrants' individual (demographic and socioeconomic) characteristics and regional controls that capture their external social conditions. Finally, the strength of the association varies with time since migration; it is significant for "established" and second-generation immigrants but vanishes for "recent" immigrants.
A Logistic Regression Analysis of Life Satisfaction amongst African Immigrants in Hamilton, Canada
Societies Without Borders, 2020
Many minority immigrants currently face severe human rights violation through discrimination and racism, influencing how they rate their life satisfaction in their host destinations. This paper examines the factors that affect African immigrants’ life satisfaction in a mid-sized Canadian city. Using a combination of descriptive and multivariate methods applied on a sample survey (n=236) conducted in Hamilton, Ontario, this article investigates socio-demographic and health-related factors that predict life satisfaction amongst African immigrants, specifically, Ghanaians and Somalis. Findings suggest that Ghanaian immigrants reported greater life satisfaction than their Somali counterparts. People with residency in Canada over 10 years are more likely to report higher life satisfaction than those with length of residence from zero to ten years. Older individuals (i.e., age 25-54) are more likely to express higher life satisfaction compared to younger individuals (i.e., 18-24). The fin...
Migration as a Test of the Happiness Set Point Hypothesis: Evidence from Immigration to Canada
2016
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New Immigrants' Assessments of Their Life in Canada
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
... are not significant in several studies focused on immigrants (Fugl-Meyer, Melin and Fugl-Meyer 2002; Remennick 2005 ... Sam (2001) and Chow (2007) find a negative correlation between perceived discrimination and life satisfaction among immigrant and international students ...
Dimensions of life satisfaction: Immigrant and ethnic minorities
The article investigates the dimensions of life satisfaction of immigrant and ethnic minorities comparing them with the majority population. It constructs a theoretical framework, taking into account both pecuniary and non-pecuniary dimensions of welfare. This study is based on the data of the Social Survey, administered by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics. Immigrants in this study are regarded as a migrant minority and Israeli-born Arab citizens as an ethnic minority. The results reveal significant life satisfaction gaps between the groups, which can be partially explained by the value of work per se and the value of leisure activities. Applying the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique, the study revealed that the gap in life satisfaction could be attributed both to the differences in pecuniary and non-pecuniary resources for each group, and to different returns on resources. Policy targeted on increasing the economic possibilities of minority groups would decrease the life satisfaction gaps.