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Social Indicators Research

Erschienen in:

05.12.2014

Internal Migration and Life Satisfaction: Well-Being Paths of Young Adult Migrants

verfasst von: Malgorzata Switek

Erschienen in: Social Indicators Research | Ausgabe 1/2016

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Abstract

Internal migration is typically associated with higher income, but its relation with life satisfaction remains unclear. Is internal migration accompanied by an increase in life satisfaction and does this increase depend on the reason for moving? What are the aspects of life underlying overall life satisfaction that change following migration? These questions are addressed using longitudinal data from the Swedish Young Adult Panel Study. Migration is defined as a change in municipality of residence. Comparing migrants to non-migrants, it is found that internal migration is accompanied by a short to medium term increase in life satisfaction for those who move due to work (work migrants), as well as those who move for other reasons (non-work migrants). However, only work migrants display an improvement in life satisfaction that remains significant 6 or more years following the move. Work and non-work migrants also differ in the aspects of life that change following migration. For work migrants the move is accompanied by an improvement in occupational status positively associated with well-being 6–10 years after the move. For non-work migrants, a persisting increase in housing satisfaction follows migration, but this housing improvement is accompanied by only a short to medium term increase in overall well-being.

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For complete information on the number of observations available for each of the main variables included in the study, see Table 11 in Appendix 2.

The distance traveled by those who changed counties of residence was roughly approximated using the distance between the centers of county of origin and county of destination.

The threshold of 6 years is chosen because it allows to split the movers into roughly two equal sized groups, assuring an appropriate number of observations in both the less and more recent migrant categories.

Satisfaction with relationship with partner, though available in the survey, is not used due to high non-response rates in both years (Table 11 in Appendix 2).

The response to this question measures satisfaction with any activity that the person was currently doing, which should most often, but not always, be interpreted as occupation. Additionally, the question prior to this changed in between 1999 and 2009 from one related to work (importance of being successful at work) to one related to religion (importance of religion).

This statement holds under the assumption that the shock is related to the decision to migrate and therefore migrants will have been present at community c during its occurrence and will only make the decision to move after this event. If no shock occurs at a community between periods 0 and 1 or if a shock takes place that is unrelated to the migration decision, then it would not be a source of endogeneity and so it would not bias the results. In that case θ_c(t−1) = 0.

Though life satisfaction and some of the other dependent variables are ordinal, the first difference OLS model is preferred due to the complications arising from assuming fixed-effects with ordered models (Wooldridge 2010). Additionally, it has been shown that assuming either ordinality or cardinality of satisfaction answers provides virtually the same empirical results, and that the benefits of including fixed-effects exceed the losses of using a non-linear model in these estimations (Ferrer-i-Carbonell and Frijters 2004).

This implies that with two communities, for example, four separate clusters would be used: for those living in community c_a at times 0 and 1, c_b at times 0 and 1, c_a at time 0 and c_b at time 1, and c_b at time 0 and c_a at time 1.

The exact set of instrumental variables used is: (1) “home when growing up”, reference category: Stockholm/Gothenburg/Malmö (large cities), other categories: medium size city, rural area, abroad; (2) two expectation variables: in five years respondent expects to earn a lot of money/in five years respondent expects to work part-time to have time for family, response categories: yes/maybe/no, coded on a scale of 1–3.

Response categories: does not apply at all/applies partially/applies completely, coded on a scale of 1–3.

The estimates from the IV models mentioned are all available from the author upon request.

Out of the traditional techniques employed to treat missing data, likewise deletion has been suggested to be as good as any of the other approaches. However, when large proportions of data are missing more advanced methods, such as multiple imputation, have been found to work best (Scheffer 2002).

The exact model for the multiple imputation of reason to migrate (a binary variable for migrants defined as work or other) included the following variables: birth cohort, dummies for completion of education and birth of a child, changes in civil status, life satisfaction in 99 and 09, work income in 99 and 09, occupation status in 99 and 09, satisfaction with housing in 99 and 09, economic satisfaction in 99 and 09, satisfaction with occupation in 99 and 09. For more information on the ICE method and how its results compare to other imputation techniques see Ambler and Omar (2007).

Additional regressions using a specification controlling for the change in county-specific characteristics further confirm these results (Appendix 4).

While hours worked increased for those whose occupational status improved between 1999 and 2009 by 5.73, for those for whom status remained the same hours worked decreased by −2.62.

For a full discussion of this variable, refer to the data description section.

The similarity in the differential (with respect to non-migrants) absolute and relative income changes is due to the move patterns: for the average migrant the incomes of the municipalities of origin and of destination are almost the same (160 vs. 166 thousand kronas in 2009). This implies that the reference incomes for migrants and non-migrants are very close in magnitude. If the reference incomes were exactly the same at both time 0 and time 1, then the difference between migrants and non-migrants in absolute and relative income changes would be the same. Numerically, where RY = relative income, and AY = absolute income: ΔRY^M − ΔRY^NM = [(AY ₁ ^M − c1) − (AY ₀ ^M − c0)] − [(AY ₁ ^NM − c1)–(AY ₀ ^NM − c0)] = ΔAY^M − ΔAY^NM.

Regressions were also run using county-level clustering and adjusting for few clusters by using a T distribution with 21 degrees of freedom. The results using this method (available upon request), confirm the results of the main section.

While the information on the reason to move is only available in 2009, the question asked specifically about the reason of the “most recent long distance move”. For those moving between 1999 and 2003 and remaining in the same municipality thereafter, the reason to move reported in 2009 should therefore correspond to the move taking place in the previous period. Still, given the possible lack in accuracy that this imposes, the results estimated for work and non-work migrants separately should be considered limited.

The income variable used here is self-reported income in 1999, and is different from the Register data used in the study. The Register data could not be used to analyze the problem of attrition, as it is only available for the people who are interviewed in 2009—consequently, it is only available for non-attritors.

The variables included are: place of residence when growing up (large city, medium sized city, small city, or abroad), expectations about the future related to money and parenting/parental-leave, and information on a respondent’s job situation in 1999 (whether it pays well, is stressful, presents good career possibilities and opportunities to develop competence, and provides a good social environment). This is the same set of variables used in an attempt to construct an instrument for migration in the main section of the paper.

The general population encompasses all inhabitants of Sweden born in the 1968, 1972 and 1976 cohorts for whom Register information was available in 1999 and 2009.

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Titel: Internal Migration and Life Satisfaction: Well-Being Paths of Young Adult Migrants
verfasst von: Malgorzata Switek
Publikationsdatum: 05.12.2014
Verlag: Springer Netherlands
Erschienen in: Social Indicators Research / Ausgabe 1/2016
Print ISSN: 0303-8300
Elektronische ISSN: 1573-0921
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-014-0829-x

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