Introduction

The considerable happiness differences between countries suggest that migrating to another country provides for many people a major opportunity to obtain a happier life (Helliwell and Wang, 2012).

However, negative migrant experiences are common, including exploitation (IOM, 2015), social exclusion, homesickness (Dreby, 2010), and unsuccessful socioeconomic assimilation (Portes and Zhou, 1993).

This raises important questions in our globalizing world, where more than 700 million people currently say they would like to move permanently to another country if they had the opportunity (Esipova et al., 2017), and where the migrant population is expected to increase from the current 250 million to an estimated 400 million people in 2050 (United Nations, 2015).

Do migrants generally gain happiness from moving to another country? In what specific migration flows do migrants gain happiness from moving abroad? Do the short-term and long-term impacts of migration on migrants’ happiness differ? What is the impact of migration on the happiness of families left behind?

We assess these questions in a global context using Gallup World Poll data including more than 29,000 first-generation migrants from over 150 countries. By addressing these questions empirically, this chapter is intended to develop globally comparable information about how migration affects the happiness of migrants and their families. The outcomes in both the affective and cognitive dimensions of happiness will be considered.

The affective dimension refers to the frequency of experiencing pleasant moods and emotions as opposed to unpleasant ones, whereas the cognitive dimension refers to a person’s contentment and satisfaction with life (Diener et al., 1999).

Approximately 10% of international migrants are considered refugees who were forced to migrate by external circumstances such as war, persecution, or natural disasters (UNHCR, 2017).

The other 90% of international migrants are believed to move largely voluntarily. Voluntary migrants mention a variety of motives for migration, including economic gain, career or study opportunities, living closer to family, or a more liveable or suitable environment (e.g., more religious or political freedom). On the most general level, however, these concrete motives are different ways migrants attempt to improve their own or their families’ lives (Ottonelli and Torresi, 2013).

Empirical research shows that, when making important decisions such as migration decisions, most people tend to choose the option they think will make them or their families happiest (Benjamin et al., 2014).

This suggests that migrants move particularly to improve their own or their families’ lives in terms of happiness, with the exception of refugees who move primarily to secure their lives.

Conceptually, then, happiness, which is often used synonymously with subjective well-being, provides valuable information about the impact of migration on well-being (Hendriks and Bartram, 2019).

The above considerations imply that voluntary migrants anticipate that migration will lead to improved well-being for themselves and/ or their families. Many migrants will surely experience considerable happiness gains, particularly those who meet basic subsistence needs by migrating, as basic needs such as economic security and safety are vital conditions for happiness.

Migrants moving to more developed countries may also experience major gains in other important well-being domains, such as freedom, education, and economic welfare (Nikolova and Graham 2015; Zuccotti et al., 2017).

It should come as no surprise, however, to find that some migrants have not become happier following migration. Migration is associated with severe costs in other critical well-being domains, particularly those relating to social and esteem needs.

Separation from friends and family, social exclusion in the host country (e.g., discrimination), and decreased social participation due to linguistic and cultural barriers are typical social costs of migration that frequently result in experiences of social isolation, loneliness, and impaired social support among migrants (Morosanu, 2013; Hendriks and Bartram, 2016).

Migration also often entails a lower position in the social hierarchy, a sense of dislocation, and acculturative stress (Berry, 2006).

Additionally, happiness gains may falter over time because people tend to adapt more to the typical benefits of migration, such as improvements in economic welfare, than to migration’s typical costs, such as leaving behind one’s social and cultural environment (Frey and Stutzer, 2014).

Migration decisions are complicated by major information constraints. Most prospective migrants have never been in their intended destination country. They necessarily resort to information from the media or their personal social network.

However, these sources tend to provide limited and positively biased information; for example, migrants tend to be hesitant about revealing their disappointing migration outcomes to people in their home country (Mahler, 1995; Sayad, 2004; Mai, 2005).

In essence, prospective migrants must make one of the most important and difficult decisions of their lives based on limited knowledge of its consequences. Imperfect decisions may also follow from inaccurately weighing the importance of the anticipated advantages and disadvantages of migrating.

Placing disproportionate weight on certain aspects of the outcome may be common, since human susceptibility to deviations from a standard of rationality is well-documented in the social sciences (Schkade and Kahneman, 1998; Gilbert, 2006).

Specifically, people are believed to put excessive weight on satisfying salient desires, most notably economic gain, at a cost to other needs such as social needs (Frey and Stutzer, 2014).

These beliefs are inspired by the weak correlation between economic welfare and happiness for people who have sufficient money to make ends meet (Easterlin, 1974).

Migration may thus be a misguided endeavour for some migrants who move in search of a better life (Bartram, 2013a; Olgiati et al., 2013), which signals the need to evaluate whether migrants are truly better off after migration.

Evaluating the outcomes of migration is complicated, however, by the rarity of experimental studies and panel studies tracking international migrants across international borders.

Existing work evaluating migrants’ happiness outcomes is mostly limited to comparing the happiness of migrants with that of matched stayers, i.e., demographically similar people living in a migrant’s home country (e.g., Mähönen et al., 2013; Nikolova and Graham, 2015).

The happiness of matched stayers reflects what the migrant’s happiness would have been like had they not migrated, which implies that migrants benefit from migration if they report higher happiness levels than matched stayers. This methodology has limited leverage in estimating the causal impact of migration because the non-random selection of people into migration is not fully captured by the comparison of demographically similar migrants and stayers.

For example, compared with stayers, migrants tend to be less risk-averse, to have a higher achievement motivation and lower affiliation motivation, and to differ in terms of pre-migration skills and wealth (Boneva and Frieze, 2001; Jaeger et al., 2010; McKenzie et al., 2010).

Moreover, people who are relatively unhappy given their socio-economic conditions are more willing to migrate (Graham and Markowitz, 2011; Cai et al., 2014).

Such unobserved pre-migration differences between migrants and stayers may bias the estimated impact of migration when using simple comparisons of migrants and stayers.

The current literature generally reports happiness gains for migrants moving to more developed countries, whereas non-positive happiness outcomes are observed particularly among migrants moving to less developed countries (Hendriks, 2015; Nikolova and Graham, 2015; IOM, 2013).

However, there are notable exceptions to this general pattern. Convincing evidence comes from the only experimental data available, which concerns a migration lottery among Tongan residents hoping to move to New Zealand (Stillman et al., 2015).

Four years after migration, the ‘lucky’ Tongans who were allowed to migrate were less happy than the ‘unlucky’ Tongans who were forced to stay, even though the voluntary migrants enjoyed substantially better objective wellbeing, such as nearly triple their pre-migration income.

Non-positive happiness outcomes are also reported among other migration flows to more developed countries, such as for Polish people moving to Western Europe (Bartram, 2013a) and in the context of internal migration, ruralurban migrants in China (Knight and Gunatilaka, 2010).

The strong dependence of migration outcomes on where migrants come from and where they go highlights the unique characteristics of each migration flow and the importance of information on the well-being outcomes of migrants in specific migration flows.

One possible reason for non-positive outcomes among some migrants is that they have not yet fully reaped the benefits of migration. Most migrants perceive migration as an investment in their future; they typically expect their well-being to gradually improve over time after overcoming initial hurdles, such as learning the language and finding a job.

Conversely, as mentioned above, the initial effect of migration is weakened by migrants’ adaptation to their lives in the host country that may follow from a shifting frame-of-reference (Hendriks and Burger, 2020).

The migrant’s length of stay may thus be important to consider when evaluating the well-being consequences of migration.

Another possible reason that some migrants may not become happier from migration is that they sacrifice some of their own happiness to support, via remittances, the well-being of family members and/ or others who remain in the country of origin.

The vast scope of worldwide bilateral remittance flows – exceeding an estimated $600 billion in 2015 alone (Ratha et al., 2016) – illustrates that moving abroad to improve the welfare of people back home is an established reason for migration, particularly among migrants moving from developing to developed countries, and highlights that migration is often a family decision rather than an individual one (Stark and Bloom, 1985).

The receipt of remittances often results in significant economic gains and poverty alleviation for families left behind and thereby enables access to better health care, education for one’s children, and other consumption opportunities that benefit happiness (Antman, 2013).

However, family separation also has various negative consequences for family members who remain in the country of origin, such as impaired emotional support, psychological disconnection from the migrant, and a greater burden of responsibility for household chores and child nurturing (Dreby, 2010; Abrego, 2014).

Do the advantages of having a family member abroad outweigh the disadvantages? Although the receipt of remittances is associated with greater happiness (Joarder et al., 2017), having a household member abroad was not positively associated with life satisfaction among left-behind adult household members in an Ecuadorian community (Borraz et al., 2010).

Similarly, household members left behind in small Mexican and Bolivian communities do not evaluate their family happiness as having improved more than non-migrant households (Jones, 2014; 2015).

In contrast, in a comprehensive set of Latin American countries, adult household members with relatives or friends abroad who they can count on evaluate their lives more positively than adults without such relatives or friends abroad (Cárdenas et al., 2009).

Causal evidence for emotional well-being and mental health is also mixed. For example, the emigration of a family member did not affect the emotional well-being of left-behind families in Tonga and the elderly in Moldova but did negatively affect various aspects of emotional well-being among left-behind Mexican women and caregivers in Southeast Asia (Gibson et al., 2011; Böhme et al., 2015; Nobles et al., 2015).

Hence, the happiness consequences of migration for those staying behind appear to be strongly context-dependent. Given that the current literature has predominantly focused on specific countries or communities, a global picture is missing of how migration affects the happiness of those staying behind and how it affects those staying behind in the various unexplored migration flows.

This chapter contributes to existing knowledge in three main ways. First, it covers the happiness outcomes of migrants in previously unexplored migration flows between world regions (e.g., from South Asia to Southeast Asia), within world regions (e.g., within sub-Saharan Africa), and between specific countries (e.g., Russians to Israel) using a methodology that allows for more accurate estimates of the happiness consequences of migration than is typically used in the literature. Second, while previous work predominantly evaluated migrants’ cognitive happiness outcomes (life evaluations), this article explores migrants’ happiness outcomes more comprehensively by additionally considering the impact of migration on the affective dimension of happiness (moods and emotions). Third, this article provides a global overview of the relationship between migration and the happiness of families left behind and examines the impact of migration on household members staying behind in various previously unexplored migration flows.

1. Methodology

To determine the impact of migration, we aim to compare the happiness of migrants to what their happiness would have been had they not migrated. The latter is unobserved. In the absence of large-scale experimental or panel data tracking migrants across international borders, we use pooled annual cross-sectional Gallup World Poll (GWP) data across more than 150 countries and territories spanning the period 2009-2016 to make this comparison. This data is collected by Gallup through yearly surveys with adult citizens. The adult sample contains more than 36,000 first-generation migrants.[1] To mitigate the above discussed self-selection and reverse causality issues in the best possible way given our cross-sectional data, we use a more rigorous approach than a simple comparison of migrants and matched stayers, as has been typically done in the literature.[2] We first matched migrants to demographically similar people in their country of origin who desire to move permanently to another country, i.e., potential migrants.

Given that emigration aspirations are found to be good predictors of subsequent migration behaviour (Van Dalen and Henkens, 2013; Creighton, 2013; Docquier et al., 2014), potential migrants can be assumed to have similar unobserved characteristics (e.g., similar risk preferences and pre-migration wealth) as migrants had before they migrated.

By using the happiness of potential migrants as a proxy for migrants’ pre-migration happiness, we created a synthetic panel that allows us to estimate migrants’ pre- versus post-migration change in happiness. The comparison of migrants and potential migrants captures a migrant’s change in happiness but not how the happiness of migrants would have developed had they not migrated. We included a control group to capture this counterfactual. Specifically, we matched migrants with demographically similar stayers who expressed no desire to migrate (reflecting the happiness of stayers in the post-migration period) and we additionally matched potential migrants with demographically similar stayers who expressed no desire to migrate (reflecting the happiness of stayers in the pre-migration period). In the end, we have four groups: migrants after migration (group 1), migrants before migration (group 2), stayers in the post-migration period (group 3), and stayers in the pre-migration period (group 4). We calculated the impact of migration by comparing migrants’ average pre- versus post-migration period change in happiness to that of stayers (i.e., difference-in-differences). Our empirical strategy is described in more detail in Appendix A.

We ensured that our immigrant sample is as representative as possible for the true immigrant stock size of each country by virtue of a weighting variable using UN DESA (2015) data on each country’s immigrant stock. In some analyses, the immigrant population is divided into newcomers and long-timers based on whether the immigrant has lived for more or fewer than five years in their country of residence to compare the short- and long-term impacts of migration. We consider three happiness indicators that together cover the cognitive and affective dimension of happiness:

1. Life evaluation – as measured by the Cantril ladder-of-life question that asks people to make a cognitive assessment of the quality of their lives on an 11-point ladder scale, with the bottom rung of the ladder (0) being the worst possible life for them and the top rung (10) being the best possible life.

2. Positive affect – as measured before 2012 by a three-item index asking respondents whether they frequently experienced (1) enjoyment, (2) laughter, and (3) happiness on the day before the survey. For the 2013-2016 period, a two-item index comprising the first two items was used because the latter item was not available for this period.

3. Negative affect – as measured by a three-item index asking respondents whether they frequently experienced (1) worry, (2) sadness, and (3) anger on the day before the survey.

We conduct separate analyses for each happiness indicator because, while positively correlated, outcomes can differ considerably between these dimensions (Kahneman and Deaton, 2010). To be consistent with the Cantril-ladder-of-life measure, both affect indexes were re-scaled to range from 0 to 10.

2. Results

2.1. The happiness outcomes of migrants

The average happiness gains of the global immigrant population are presented in Figure 1. Immigrants across the globe evaluate their lives on average 0.47 points higher (on a 0-10 scale) after migration, which implies that migrants report approximately 9% higher life evaluations following migration.3 Migrants also experience 5% more positive affect (0.33 points on a 0-10 scale) and 7% less negative affect (0.23 points on a 0-10 scale) due to migration.4

The increased life evaluations of “newcomers”, and to a lesser extent their increased positive affect experiences, show that immigrants already achieve happiness gains during their first five years after migration.7 The happiness gains of long-timers are very similar to those of newcomers.

This finding suggests that the happiness of immigrants does not improve much with their length of stay in the destination country, which is in line with previous research findings (e,g., Safi 2010).8

Table 1 shows the happiness outcomes in some of the largest migration flows within or between ten world regions: Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), Western Europe, and finally, Northern America combined with Australia and New Zealand (NA & ANZ). We highlight the most important results.

Figure 1
The happiness gains/losses of the global immigrant population

All measures have a 0-10 scale. 95% confidence interval bars shown. The sample contains 36,574 immigrants, including 6,499 newcomers and 30,075 long-timers.

GWP 2009-2016.

Migrants in almost all reported migration flows evaluate their lives more positively after migration, including migrants moving within world regions (e.g., migrants within CIS), migrants moving to more developed world regions (e.g., from CEE to Western Europe), and migrants moving between similarly developed world regions (e.g., from Western Europe to Northern America & ANZ). At the same time, migrants do not experience less negative affect following migration in the majority of considered migration flows. Increased positive affect following migration is more common than reduced negative affect but less common than life evaluation gains. Taken together, improved contentment is more prevalent than improved affective experiences. Accordingly, migration positively impacts all three aspects of happiness (life evaluations, positive affect, and negative affect) in only four out of the 20 considered migration flows. These four migration flows include migrants within the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Middle East and North Africa, Western Europe, and Central & Eastern Europe. Non-positive outcomes for all three happiness indicators are experienced by migrants within South Asia and within Northern America & ANZ. These findings highlight that migrants typically experience divergent outcomes in life evaluations, positive affect, and negative affect. Nevertheless, negative outcomes at the level of regional migration flows are uncommon; only migrants from CIS to MENA report increased negative affect and decreased positive affect. This migration flow mainly includes migrants to Israel. Finally, the results show that there is no strong relationship between the size of the migration flow and the size of migrants’ happiness gains.

It should be noted that the happiness outcomes of migrants from a given source region to the various destination regions are not directly comparable. For example, the slightly higher happiness gains among migrants within LAC compared with Latin American migrants moving to Western Europe does not imply that those who moved to Western Europe would have been better off had they moved within LAC. One reason is that the considered migration flows often differ in the distribution of source countries. For example, compared with Argentinians, relatively more Nicaraguans move within Latin America and relatively fewer move to Western Europe. Another reason is that migrants in different migration flows may have different characteristics. For example, many migrants moving within regions do not have the financial resources to move to another world region and certain types of migrants (e.g., humanitarian migrants) are admitted in some destination countries/regions but not in others. Moreover, the achieved happiness gains are not indicative of the maximum possible happiness gain of a certain migration flow. For instance, most Latin American migrants in Western Europe live in Spain and Portugal, but they may have been happier had they moved to another Western European country.

We further test to what extent the happiness levels of migrants converge towards the average happiness level in the destination country by comparing a migrant’s happiness gain with the happiness differential between the migrant’s origin- and destination country. This origin-destination happiness differential is calculated by subtracting the average happiness level in the country of origin from that of the destination country’s native-born population.

Table 1
Migrants’ Happiness Outcomes by Regional Migration Flow

GWP 2009-2016 and UN DESA (2015).Notes: 95% confidence intervals in parentheses.* p<0.05, ** p<0.01, NS = not significant at the 5% level. Migration flows with fewer than 300 migrant-stayer matches are not reported.

Migration flow	Life Evaluation	Positive affect		Negative affect		Size of migrant stock		N of migrants
Within regions
Commonwealth of Independent States	+0.39** [0.28 - 0.49]	+0.43** [0.23 - 0.63]		-0.51** [-0.64 - -0.37]		22,092,847		4,176
Sub-Saharan Africa	+0.21** [0.06 - 0.35]		NS		NS		15,952,589		4,184
Middle East and North Africa	+0.44** [0.21 - 0.66]		+0.57** [0.18 - 0.96]		-0.95** [-1.36 - -0.54]		14,273,111		2,563

Figure 2 shows three scatter plots – one for each happiness indicator – of migrants’ happiness gains/losses due to migration (as presented on the X-axis) and the corresponding origin-destination happiness differentials (as presented on the Y-axis). The data points represent the 20 regional migration flows as presented in Table 1. Migrants’ happiness levels tend to become more similar to those of people in their destination country when there is a high positive correlation between migrants’ happiness gains and the destination-origin happiness differential, i.e., when the points are closer to the 45-degree lines in each panel. Indeed, we find a strong positive correlation between the life evaluation gains of migrants and the life evaluation differentials between their origin- and destination countries (r=0.80). The correlations for positive affect (r=0.48) and negative affect (r=0.35) are also positive but more moderate. These results show that the happiness of migrants converges substantially − though not entirely − towards the average happiness level in the host country, particularly in terms of life evaluations. Migrant happiness thus strongly depends on the host country environment.

2.2. The happiness outcomes of families left behind

We estimate the happiness consequences of having a household member abroad by comparing the happiness of individuals with and without a household member abroad. For this purpose, we use global GWP data spanning the period 2007-2011. To account for the non-random selection of households into migration, we employ exact matching and compare only individuals with the same gender and education level, who are from the same country of residence and age group (maximum age difference of 5 years), and who live in a similar type of location (rural vs. urban).[3]

Figure 2
The relationship between migrants' happiness gains and the corresponding origin-destination happiness differential

The interpretation of these graphs can be exemplified using the upper right data point in the “life evaluation” panel. This data point represents migrants from sub-Saharan Africa to Western Europe, and shows that these migrants evaluate their lives 1.44 higher due to migration (as presented on the X-axis) while the corresponding difference in life evaluations between the native populations of their host-and origin countries is 2.29 (as presented on the Y-axis). The origin-destination differential is weighted by the size of bilateral migration flows within these world regions to ensure accurate comparisons.

GWP 2009-2016.

In a first model, we estimate how having one or multiple household members living abroad for under five years affects the happiness of leftbehind household members across 144 countries. We do not have information on the exact relationship between the migrant and left-behind household member and the migrant’s motive for migration. However, it is conceivable that one of the most common reasons for moving abroad without other household members is to improve the household’s living standard by working abroad and sending back remittances.

This group of migrant workers is characterized by great diversity, ranging from female nurses from the Philippines to male construction workers from Latin America. The household member abroad can, however, also be another family member (e.g., a child or sibling) or move for different reasons (e.g., for study purposes). Household members left behind are likely to be the migrant’s spouse, children, parents, siblings, or other extended family members. The results, presented in the upper left panel of Figure 3, show that individuals with a household member abroad typically evaluate their lives more positively and experience more positive affect than their counterparts without a relative abroad. However, they also experience more negative affect.

A plausible explanation for these mixed happiness outcomes is that the family’s often significant economic gain from migration is more strongly related to cognitive assessments of quality of life (life evaluations) than affective experiences (Kahneman and Deaton, 2010), whereas those left behind may often suffer emotionally because they may experience increased sadness from being separated from the migrated household member and increased worry from communicating infrequently with the family member and being unable to share responsibilities such as child nurturing (Nobles et al., 2015; Abrego, 2014).

The two right panels of Figure 3 present the outcomes of household members left behind by household members who specifically moved abroad for temporary work or permanent residence, respectively. The analysis sample is limited to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and countries of the former Soviet Union. Household members left behind by migrants moving for temporary work or to permanently live abroad evaluate their lives more positively than their counterparts without a household member abroad. However, they do not benefit from migration in terms of emotional well-being; most notably, individuals with a household member abroad for temporary work experience increased negative affect following migration. Similarly, as shown in the lower left panel, Latin Americans who receive remittances from relatives abroad evaluate their lives more positively and experience more positive affect but they do not experience less negative affect compared with non-migrant households.

Taken together, the results reported in Figure 3 suggest that migration generally improves the perceived quality of life of household members back home but not necessarily their emotional well-being. Particularly interesting is that having a household member abroad generally does not reduce – and often even increases − negative affect experiences among the family back home. Hence, migration often requires tradeoffs between different aspects of happiness for people staying behind.

Figure 3
The relationship between migrants' happiness gains and the corresponding origin-destination happiness differential
a Worldwide GWP 2007-2011 data. b GWP 2009 data covering all countries of the former Soviet Union, most Latin American countries, and some Caribbean countries. c GWP 2007 data covering most Latin American countries and the Dominican Republic. Note: 95% confidence interval bars shown.

In Table 2, we present the impact of migration on left-behind household members for selected migration flows within or between world regions. The analysis sample contains all individuals with a household member abroad, i.e., the sample as in the upper left panel of Figure 3. There is considerable heterogeneity in outcomes between migration flows. The benefits in terms of life evaluations and positive affect are particularly large for individuals in the developing world who have a household member living in Western Europe, Northern America, Australia, or New Zealand. It is plausible that benefits are typically largest in these migration flows given that the large wage gaps between these origin-and destination countries allow for high remittances. However, in some cases, benefits are also present among families left behind in other types of migration flows, such as migrants moving within the Commonwealth of Independent States. In 8 out of 21 migration flows, non-positive outcomes are experienced for all three aspects of happiness. For example, household members left behind by migrants within MENA experience increased negative affect and no improvements in life evaluations or positive affect. Interestingly, there are no migration flows in which migration reduced negative affect experiences among families back home, which highlights the prevalence of a non-positive impact of migration on the negative affect experiences of those staying behind.

Table 2
The Impact of Migration on Left-Behind Household Members by Regional Migration Flow

GWP 2007-2011.Notes 95% confidence intervals in parentheses.* p<0.05, ** p<0.01. NS= not significant at the 5% level. Migration flows with fewer than 300 homestayer matches are not reported.

Western Europe		NS		NS		NS		1,074
Central & Eastern Europe		NS		NS		NS		550
Southeast Asia		NS		NS		NS		309
	East Asia		+0.26* [0.05 - 0.47]		NS		NS		304
	Between regions		Importar imagen
	LAC → NA & ANZ		+0.24** [0.16 - 0.33]		+0.29** [0.19 - 0.40]		NS		3,360
	CEE → Western Europe		+0.12** [0.04 - 0.21]		NS		NS		3,311
	SSA → Western Europe		+0.29** [0.21 - 0.37]		+0.34** [0.16 - 0.52]		NS		3,202
	LAC → Western Europe		+0.28** [0.17 - 0.40]		+0.19* [0.02 - 0.36]		NS		1,806
	SSA → NA & ANZ		+0.16** [0.04 - 0.28]		+0.54** [0.30 - 0.78]		NS		1,575
	South Asia → MENA		+0.29** [0.15 - 0.42]		NS		NS		1,024
	MENA → Western Europe		+0.22* [0.06 - 0.38]		NS		+0.32* [0.02 - 0.62]		834
	SSA → MENA		NS		+0.42* [0.03 - 0.82]		NS		717
	Southeast Asia → NA & ANZ		+0.21** [0.06 - 0.35]		+0.52** [0.20 - 0.84]		NS		705
	CEE → NA & ANZ		+0.28** [0.07 - 0.49]		+0.47* [0.12 - 0.82]		NS		695
	East Asia → NA & ANZ		NS		NS		NS		637
	CIS → Western Europe		+0.51** [0.31 - 0.70]		+0.50** [0.13 - 0.86]		NS		604
	Western Europe → NA & ANZ		+0.21* [0.00 - 0.42]		NS		NS		463

3. Robustness checks and limitations

Some possible validity threats cannot be fully addressed in our crosssectional study, which is typical of empirical literature estimating the impact of migration on migrants and families left behind.[4]

In our analysis of migrant outcomes, we mitigated possible selection bias in terms of demographics, skills, ability, personality, and other characteristics to the extent possible by introducing potential migrants as a comparison group and by comparing migrants only to demographically similar stayers. Nevertheless, unobserved migrant-stayer differences in personal characteristics that affect happiness could remain present and may bias our results to some extent. To alleviate this concern, we conducted a robustness check in which potential migrants were replaced by a smaller sample of migrants with concrete plans to migrate within a year. The pre-migration characteristics of our migrant sample may be more similar to those of people with concrete migration plans than to those of people expressing only a willingness to migrate. A potential limitation of using migrants with concrete migration plans as a comparison group is that their anticipated migration may have affected their happiness. The results using this alternative comparison group are consistent with our main finding that migrants are better off after migration on all three happiness indicators. However, compared with our main results, migration has a somewhat weaker impact on positive affect and a stronger impact on negative affect.

Second, temporary migrants live for a shorter period in the host country compared with permanent migrants and thus have a smaller chance of being sampled in the host country. Therefore, temporary migrants are likely to be under-represented in our sample. This may bias the results if returnees achieve relatively better or worse happiness outcomes in the host country than permanent migrants.

However, return migration is in many cases not primarily driven by the success of the migration experience (e.g., for refugees returning home), whereas in other cases return migration resulting from a disappointing migration experience is to some extent counterbalanced by return migration resulting from having successfully achieved one’s migration goals (De Haas et al., 2015).

Nevertheless, non-causal evidence shows that returnees tend to be less happy than stayers in the home country and non-returned migrants, which may be either because return migrants were already relatively unhappy before moving abroad or because migrants with disappointing migration outcomes are more inclined to return home (Bartram, 2013b; Nikolova and Graham, 2015).

Based on the current evidence, we cannot provide a reliable estimate of the extent and direction of the bias resulting from the underrepresentation of temporary migrants.

Third, our migrant sample excludes some migrant groups. First, migrants in Gulf Cooperation Council countries and sparsely populated countries and island states are excluded, representing altogether less than 8% of the world's migrant population (UN DESA, 2015).

Aside from the exclusion of these groups, the analysis sample was made representative, to the extent possible, of each destination country’s immigrant stock size by virtue of a weighting adjustment. By contrast, the sample is not fully representative of the migrant populations within host countries, since the GWP is not specifically designed to study migrants. More specifically, the analysis sample may under-represent undocumented migrants and excludes migrants in refugee camps, migrant children, and migrants who do not speak the host country’s most common languages. The latter two groups are excluded because GWP respondents are aged 15+ and interviews are only held in each country’s most common languages, respectively.

Initial evidence suggests that proficiency in the host-country language may improve immigrant happiness (Angelini et al., 2015), whereas there is no specific research available on the happiness gains of the other excluded immigrant groups.[5]

We acknowledge that the exclusion of these immigrant groups could bias our results to some extent, and we ask the reader to keep this caveat in mind when interpreting our results.

Conclusions and implications

Using Gallup World Poll data, this chapter sheds light on the happiness consequences of migration for international migrants and families left behind across the globe. Three types of happiness outcomes were considered: life evaluations, positive affect (experiences of enjoyment, happiness, and laughter), and negative affect (experiences of worry, sadness, and anger).

By comparing migrants to matched potential migrants and other stayers, we estimate that migrants across the globe evaluate the quality of their lives on average 9% higher following migration. They also experience approximately 5% more positive affect and 7% less negative affect due to migration. Accordingly, the happiness levels of migrants converge substantially towards the average happiness level in the host country, particularly in terms of life evaluations. Most of these happiness gains are already experienced within the first five years after migration given that the happiness of international migrants generally does not further improve following those first five years.

A happiness gain in at least one of the three happiness indicators is not only the dominant outcome among migrants moving to more developed world regions (e.g., from Central and Eastern Europe to Western Europe) but also among migrants moving between similarly developed world regions (e.g., from Western Europe to Northern America & ANZ), or within world regions (e.g., migrants within Latin America and the Caribbean). Notable groups that have not become happier in some or all aspects of happiness by migrating include migrants within South Asia and migrants within Northern America & ANZ,. These findings imply that despite the happiness gains achieved by a majority of migrants, there is a considerable group of international migrants who do not become happier from migration.

Migration also affects the happiness of possible household members who stay behind in the country of origin. Our results suggest that the migration of a household member has a mixed impact on the happiness of the family back home. Families left behind generally evaluate their lives more positively. A plausible reason for this positive impact is the receipt of remittances. However, they also experience on average more – or at least no reduced – negative affect. This suggests that the disadvantages of migration, such as impaired emotional support, are more related to affect, while the benefits of migration, such as an increased living standard, are more related to life evaluations. Not surprisingly, the greatest benefits are experienced by families in the developing world who have a household member living in a developed country.

Our findings suggest that it is likely that a portion of migrants who did not gain happiness from migration sacrificed happiness for the benefit of their family back home. However, for many other migrants who are less happy after migration, this reason may not apply. For instance, in some migration flows in which non-positive outcomes are common, such as migration flows between developed countries, the entire household typically moves or the migrant does not specifically move to improve the lives of family members back home. One question that thus requires attention is why some migrants voluntarily move abroad if it benefited neither themselves nor their families back home.

These non-positive happiness outcomes cannot be justified by the argument that one invests in one’s own long-term happiness or the happiness of one’s children because we do not find that happiness increases with the migrant’s length of stay, while existing literature shows that the second generation is not happier than first-generation migrants (Safi, 2010).

Migrants may trade off happiness for other goals, such as economic security, freedom, safety, and health. However, in most cases, positive outcomes in these other domains go together with greater happiness. For example, greater happiness often accompanies greater health and safety.

A more worrisome but oft-mentioned potential cause of negative outcomes is migrants’ excessive expectations about the destination country, which originate from inaccurate perceptions about what determines their happiness and inaccurate or incomplete information about the destination country (Schkade and Kahneman, 1998; Knight and Gunatilaka, 2010; Bartram, 2013a; Olgiati et al. 2013).

The opposite question also requires attention: Considering the substantial happiness gains experienced by most international migrants, why don’t more than the current 250 million people (3.3% of the world population) live in a country other than where they were born? It seems likely that more people could benefit from migration, given the large happiness differences between countries and the benefits for the current international migrant population. Several other reasons may apply. First, many people are restricted from migration by personal constraints, such as financial, health, or family constraints. Second, many people cannot move to their preferred destination countries because of those countries’ restrictive admission policies.[6]

Third, many people are locally oriented and moving abroad is simply not a salient pathway in people’s long-term orientation toward improving their lives.

Finally, according to prospect theory, the human tendency for risk- and loss aversion may cause people to stay in their home countries given that many people face great uncertainty about the outcomes of migration as they have little knowledge about life abroad (Morrison and Clark, 2016).

In sum, international migration is for many people a powerful instrument to improve their lives given that most migrants and families back home benefit considerably from migration. Nevertheless, not all migrants and families left behind gain happiness from migration, and the happiness of migrants does not increase over time as they acclimatize to their new country. Therefore, there is still much to be done, and much to be learned, to ensure lasting benefits for migrants and their families.

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Notes