Immigrants' Life Satisfaction in Europe: Between Assimilation and Discrimination
Abstract
Using data from the three rounds of the European Social Survey, this article investigates the disparities in life satisfaction measures between the first- and second-generation immigrants, on the one hand, and the natives, on the other hand, in 13 European countries. Two major theoretical hypotheses explaining the lower level of immigrants’ subjective well-being are tested: the straight line assimilation and the effect of discrimination. The main finding is that immigrants’ relative dissatisfaction does not diminish with time and across generations, which refutes the predictions of the assimilation paradigm. However, when ethnic groups are compared, the discrimination some of them perceive in the host society seems to be a more consistent explanation for their lower life satisfaction level. The effect of discrimination is measured with an attempt to correct for the endogeneity bias that it may lead to by using simultaneous regressions with instrumental variables.
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Rust, R. T. (2020) · International Journal of Research in Marketing · doi:10.1016/j.ijresmar.2019.08.002 · Cited by 381 · see citing works
Prejudice and Discrimination Toward Immigrants
Esses, V. M. (2021) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-080520-102803 · Cited by 273 · see citing works
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“…way of assessing migrant well-being focuses exclusively on migrants’ conditions in the receiving country (Bartram 2011; Knight and Gunatilaka 2010; Safi 2009), our findings suggest that a transnational perspective brings a better understanding of how family life can affect migrant parents’…”
BackgroundJones, G. J., Taylor, E., Wegner, C., Lopez, C., Kennedy, H., & Pizzo, A. (2021) · Sport Management Review · doi:10.1080/14413523.2021.1879559 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
- Authors
- Safi, M.
- Affiliations
- Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (FR)
- Corresponding author
- Safi, M.
- ORCID
- Safi, M.
- Venue
- European Sociological Review
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2009-03-18
- Volume
- 26
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 159-176
- ISSN
- 0266-7215 (ISSN-L)
- 1468-2672
- OpenAlex
- W2003266196
- Cited by
- 448
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 21 · 2025: 25 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 38 · 2022: 27 · 2021: 37 · 2020: 44 · 2019: 41 · 2018: 35 · 2017: 24 · 2016: 31 · 2015: 26 · 2014: 25 · 2013: 23 · 2012: 14
- FWCI
- 12.19
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- European Sociological Review (publishedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- HighWire Press Open Archive (submittedVersion)
- SPIRE (Sciences Po) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Migration, Refugees, and Integration
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Migration, Health and Trauma
- Keywords
- subjective well-being, assimilation, discrimination, first-generation immigrants, immigrant children, ethnic groups, endogeneity bias, instrumental variables, European immigrants
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