Urban sustainability and the subjective well‐being of migrants: The role of risks, place attachment, and aspirations

Abstract

While material conditions of migrant populations on average tend to improve over time as they become established in new destinations, individual trajectories of material and subjective well-being often diverge. Here, we analyse how social and environmental factors in the urban environment shape the subjective well-being of migrant populations. We hypothesise these factors to include (a) perceived social and environmental risk, (b) attachment to place, and (c) migrant aspirations. We analyse data from a cross-sectional survey of 2641 individual migrants in seven cities across Ghana, India, and Bangladesh. The results show that the persistence of inferior material conditions, exposure to environmental hazards, and constrained access to services and employment affect migrants' subjective well-being. Hence, social and environmental risks constitute urban precarity for migrants whose social vulnerability persist in their destination. Meeting migration-related aspirations and developing an affinity to urban destinations have the potential to mitigate negative sentiments from perceived risks. These findings have implications for future urban planning and sustainability.

The Happy Home: Ageing, Migration, and Housing in Relation to Older Migrants’ Subjective Wellbeing

“…The brief literature review indicated that influences on wellbeing can vary across age [8,16] and cultures [5,6,54] and the importance of housing and the immediate environment to subjective wellbeing in general [5,[22][23][24][25][26][27], but especially in later life, was also highlighted [24,29], but adjoining this, research on older migrants seemed scarce [3,[42][43][44]. Therefore, this paper aimed to explore the influence of housing on the subjective wellbeing of older migrants.…”

“…However, migrants are exposed to many risks in the country of settlement that negatively impact their subjective wellbeing. Examples of such risks are housing insecurity [26,63] and discrimination. Such accumulated risks can negatively impact migrants' subjective wellbeing [26] and their creation of home [41].…”

“…Examples of such risks are housing insecurity [26,63] and discrimination. Such accumulated risks can negatively impact migrants' subjective wellbeing [26] and their creation of home [41]. In this study, most participants had lived in Belgium for many years and the role of migration background and associated disadvantages has diminished over time.…”

“…Housing fulfils a basic need and is thus associated with wellbeing [22]. Housing type, conditions, size, preferences, interior, and homeownership have all been associated with subjective wellbeing [5,[23][24][25][26][27]. Looking at housing in later life specifically, research shows that housing that is adjusted to the needs of older adults promotes autonomy and contributes to their subjective wellbeing [24], but that renting can negatively affect older adults' sense of environmental mastery [28].…”

Migration Attributes in Adaptation and Its Correlates during Pandemic: The Socio-ecological Interpretation

“…Migration promotes the development of urban informal sector (Paul et al, 2021). Urban informal sector has been considered as the resting place where the urban in-migrants work until they find a formal sector job (Selod & Shilpi, 2021;Tran et al, 2022;Szaboova et al, 2022). But increasing number of studies in recent years has repeatedly shown an alternative role of urban informal sector (Acharya et al, 2009;Pitoyo et al, 2021).…”