ABSTRACT

This paper contributes to the growing field of inquiry that investigates migrants’ subjective well-being by analysing the role of income, relative to two reference groups: natives and other migrants. Using data collected by the European Social Survey from 2002 to 2018, we constructed two measures of economic distance to compare each migrant’s economic situation with that of natives and other migrants with similar characteristics. Our results indicate that when the disadvantage between the migrant and the reference groups becomes smaller, eventually becoming an advantage, the migrant’s life satisfaction increases. Such relationship is stronger when migrants’ income is examined relative to natives than when compared with migrants’. This suggests that upward comparison is more important than downward comparison for migrants’ subjective well-being. We also show that the relationship between relative income and subjective well-being is stronger for second-generation migrants and for those with more formal education. Finally, we show that subjective measures both at the individual (feelings about one’s own economic condition) and societal (feelings about the national socio-economic-institutional condition) levels moderate the relationship between relative income and subjective well-being.

摘要

本文通过分析收入相对于两个参考群体（本地人和其他移民）的作用，为研究移民的主观幸福感的不断发展的调查领域做出了贡献。我们使用欧洲社会调查（European Social Survey）2002年至2018年收集的数据，构建了两种经济距离量度，以将每个移民的经济状况与本地居民和其他具有类似特征的移民的经济状况进行比较。我们的结果表明，当移民和参考人群之间的不利条件变小，最终成为一种优势时，移民的生活满意度就会提高。与移民相比，这种移民关系相对于本地人的收入要强得多。这表明，对于移民的主观幸福感，向上比较比向下比较更重要。我们还表明，相对收入和主观幸福感之间的关系对于第二代移民和受过正规教育的人而言更为牢固。最后，我们表明，在个人（对自己的经济状况的感觉）和社会（对国家社会经济制度状况的感觉）两个层面上的主观测量可以缓和相对收入与主观幸福感之间的关系。