It’s Not All about the Economy Stupid! Immigration and Subjective Well-Being in England

Abstract

While much is known regarding the effects of immigration for objective outcomes, relatively little is known regarding the effects for perceived well-being. By exploiting spatial and temporal variation in the net-inflows of foreign-born individuals across local areas in England, we examine the relationship between immigration and natives’ subjective well-being as captured by the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ). We find small negative effects overall but that an analysis of the main effects masks significant differences across subgroups, with relatively older individuals, those with below-average household incomes, the unemployed and finally those without any formal educational qualifications experiencing much more substantive well-being losses than others. These observed well-being differentials are congruent with voting patterns evident in the recent UK referendum on EU membership. We put forward perceived as opposed to actual labour market competition and social identity as two potential explanations for the negative well-being impacts of immigration for natives.

Happiness and Migration

“…Ivlevs and Veliziotis (2018) find no main effect of inflows of Eastern European immigrants in local areas on natives' life satisfaction following the 2004 enlargement that resulted in an unprecedented wave of Eastern European workers relocating to the UK. Consistent with Howley et al (2020), they observed that local immigration was associated with a decrease in life satisfaction among older, unemployed, and lower-income people, and with an increase in life satisfaction among younger, employed, higher-income, and better educated people. The heterogeneous impact is congruent with voting patterns in the Brexit vote.…”

“…To illustrate, Betz and Simpson (2013) find that a 10% increase in the immigrant inflow (at the sample mean) in Europe increases the happiness of natives by 0.07 points on an 11-point scale in the following year while no positive effects were observed after the second year. Howley et al (2020) find that an increase of 100,000 foreign-born individuals in the UK leads to a happiness decline of 0.025 points on a 37-point scale. Akay et al (2014) find that a 1 percentage point increase in the immigrant share in a local area results in a 0.03 increase on an 11-point life satisfaction scale.…”

“…However, Akdede and Giovanis (2021) do find a positive impact of migration on the happiness of natives and second-generation immigrants in Northern, Western, and Eastern Europe but a negative impact in Southern Europe over the period 2004-2017. Inspired by Brexit, various panel studies have been conducted for the UK. Howley et al (2020) document that net inflows of foreign-born individuals into local areas had small negative effects on happiness in the period 2000-2017, and these happiness losses are particularly experienced by relatively older, poorer, low-educated, and unemployed individuals. Ivlevs and Veliziotis (2018) find no main effect of inflows of Eastern European immigrants in local areas on natives' life satisfaction following the 2004 enlargement that resulted in an unprecedented wave of Eastern European workers relocating to the UK.…”

Urban or Rural: Where are people happier and why?

“…Moreover, looking specifically into German data, Akay et al (2014) identified the same relation, specifying that the positive effect of immigration on natives' life satisfaction depends on the assimilation of immigrants in the region. Analysing British data, we also see that, in general, groups anti-immigration are made of relatively older individuals, those with below-average household incomes, the unemployed and those without any formal education as well (Howley et al, 2019). Table 1 reveals that immigration is better viewed in bigger centres.…”

“…Such a difference is in agreement with Zahl-Thanem and Haugen (2019), who found Norwegians in the countryside express more negative attitudes towards immigrants and immigration. If, as we have seen in subsection 4.2, rural people go through more financial hardship in life, then, considering Howley et al (2019), it would make sense to expect them to be less favourable to immigration. Isolation can play a role too: maybe we are afraid of what we do not know.…”