Elsevier

The Journal of Socio-Economics

Volume 48, February 2014, Pages 40-49
The Journal of Socio-Economics

Life (dis)satisfaction and the intention to migrate: Evidence from Central and Eastern Europe

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2013.09.008Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper provides empirical evidence of the impact of life satisfaction on the individual intention to migrate. The impacts of individual characteristics and of country macroeconomic variables on the intention to migrate are analyzed jointly. Using the Eurobarometer Survey for 27 Central and Eastern European (CEE) and Western European (non-CEE) countries, we find that people have a greater intention to migrate when dissatisfied with life. The socioeconomic variables and macroeconomic conditions affect the intention to migrate indirectly through life satisfaction. At all levels of life satisfaction, individuals with similar characteristics have greater intentions to migrate from CEE countries than from non-CEE countries. These findings underscore the importance of individual life satisfaction not only as a strong predictor of the individual migration intention, but also as a mediator between individual socioeconomic variables and macroeconomic conditions and that intention.

Introduction

The factors driving the individual decision to migrate such as job and educational opportunities, expected income, relative deprivation, a better provision of social benefits and public goods, have been widely explored in the literature.1 However, non-pecuniary aspects also play a role in migration decisions (see Stark, 2003). For instance, during conflict periods such as wars, terrorist attacks, and other regional political instabilities, higher migration flows are observed regardless of any pecuniary aspects.2 Also, the quality of institutions such as civil liberties, political rights, protection of property rights, corruption, and the level of institutionalized democracies (e.g., dictatorship) cause migration flows even when monetary benefits are sufficiently high in the country of origin.3 As a result, these non-pecuniary aspects as well as tastes and culture, hidden reasons, and motives such as a feeling of deserving a better life, and a feeling of fairness, affect the decision to migrate, but may not be observed by a researcher. In this case a life satisfaction measure may be used as a proxy for both pecuniary and non-pecuniary aspects.4 In fact, many surveys include questions regarding life satisfaction, where individuals evaluate the overall quality of their own life, providing the information that can be used for those purposes.

In the literature, only a few studies have investigated the relationship between life satisfaction and individual decisions and activities. Examples of such studies are Antecol and Cobb-Clark (2009), Clark (2001), Freeman (1978), among others, who use job satisfaction as a predictor of future job quits. Lyubomirsky et al. (2005) suggest that people who are satisfied with life are likely to be more successful and socially active, while Frey and Stutzer (2006) argue that people who are satisfied with life are more likely to decide to get married. Guven et al. (2012) examine the effect of the gap in happiness between spouses on the probability to divorce. Guven (2012) finds that people who are satisfied with life spend less and save more. Graham and Markowitz (2011) find that unhappy individuals from Latin America have higher migration intentions.

In our paper we examine the individual intention to migrate, not the actual migration decision. The psychological theories of reasoned action and planned behavior suggest that the individual intention predicts the actual decision and behavior (see Ajzen, 1991, Ajzen and Fishbein, 1975, Ajzen and Fishbein, 2005, Hale and Householder, 2002). In the literature on migration, empirical evidence in favor of a strong link between the intended and actual decision is provided by Gordon and Molho (1995) and Boheim and Taylor (2002). Gordon and Molho (1995) conclude that in the UK many people who intend to migrate actually move within five years. Furthermore, Boheim and Taylor (2002) argue that the actual probability to move for potential migrants is three times greater than for those who do not intend to move. Therefore, the analysis of the individual intention to migrate is important for understanding the actual migration decision-making process.

Our paper contributes to the literature on migration and life satisfaction, and continues the discussion about the ability of using subjective indicators to capture different factors affecting the migration intention. In this study, the Eurobarometer survey for 27 Central Eastern (CEE) and Western European (non-CEE) countries in the year of 2008 is used.5 Differently from Graham and Markowitz (2011), we examine the impact of each level of life satisfaction on a Likert scale separately on the individual intention to migrate. We also jointly analyze the impact of economic factors at micro- and macro-levels on the migration intention.

Individual variables are represented by socioeconomic characteristics such as age, perceived financial situation, education, and past experience of migration, while country-level variables are unemployment, real GDP per capita, and income inequality. Country-level variables and socioeconomic characteristics are allowed to affect the individual migration intention not only directly but also through life satisfaction. That is, in this paper, life satisfaction plays the role of a mediator between country-wide economic conditions and the individual intention to migrate. Thus, we suggest a new channel capturing the impact of macroeconomic and individual socioeconomic characteristics on an individual intention to migrate, and provide additional evidence for the external validity of the life satisfaction measure.

The empirical findings indicate that people have a greater intention to migrate when dissatisfied with life. The results hold for all types of migration intentions, domestic, temporary international, and permanent international. The socioeconomic variables and macroeconomic conditions have an effect on the intention to migrate indirectly through life satisfaction. We also find differences in migration intentions between CEE and non-CEE countries at each level of life satisfaction for socioeconomic groups with different levels of perceived financial situation and education, employment status, and age.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The next section briefly reviews the relevant literature. We then present the empirical framework and robustness check, describe data, and discuss estimation results. The final section concludes.

Section snippets

Literature review

The relationship between migration and life satisfaction has not yet been thoroughly examined in the economic literature. Existing studies at the individual level focus mostly on the life satisfaction of actual migrants and their next generations. For instance, De Jong et al. (2002) study the life satisfaction of migrants in Thailand and argue that life satisfaction typically decreases after moving to a different place, while Easterlin and Zimmermann (2008) argue that migrants from Eastern to

The model

In this section we present the theoretical framework of the individual's intention to migrate. An individual i is faced with a choice between the following alternatives: do not move (1), move to another country permanently (2), move to another country temporarily (3), and move within home country (4). Following Dolan and Kahneman (2008), we consider life satisfaction as a proxy to experienced utility. Using the additive random utility model for multiple alternatives as described by Cameron and

Data

The primary data source for examining the model described above is the Eurobarometer survey, the wave of October-November 2008. This is a cross-sectional survey based on nationally representative samples that include randomly selected respondents from 27 European countries, out of which 10 are Central and Eastern European countries. There are about 1000 respondents per country. The survey contains questions on individual values and attitudes toward life, previous migration experience, the

Individual-level effects

Individual-level estimation results for the intention to migrate and life satisfaction are obtained by estimating Eqs. (7), (8a–8c). The average marginal effects for these equations are shown in Table 2A, Table 2B.

As seen in Table 2A, for each type of the intention to migrate, individuals with higher levels of life satisfaction have a lower intention to migrate. In particular, as compared to individuals with satisfaction level 1, “not at all satisfied”, individuals with satisfaction level 3,

Conclusion

The empirical findings of this paper suggest that people dissatisfied with life have a greater intention to migrate. The individual socioeconomic factors and macroeconomic conditions have an effect on the intention to migrate indirectly through life satisfaction. These findings underscore the importance of individual life satisfaction not only as a strong predictor of the individual migration intention, but also as a mediator between individual socioeconomic variables and macroeconomic

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the ERSTE Foundation Generations in Dialogue Fellowship for Social Researchers. We are grateful to Alena Bičáková, David Blanchflower, Andrew Clark, Maria A. Cunha e Sá, Ira Gang, Jan Kmenta, Rainer Münz, Luis Catela Nunes, Andreas Ortmann, Andrew Oswald, Stefan Trautmann, two anonymous referees, ERSTE Foundation Fellows, and participants at conferences and workshops for valuable comments and suggestions that helped improve the paper.

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