Happiness and International Migration: An Overview

In recent happiness economy studies, it has been found that objective criteria such as absolute income is not the only effect on the life satisfaction of individuals. Sociodemographic characteristics such as age, gender, employment status, education, marital status neglected by neo-classical theory and many other factors like relative income, institutional factors, ethnic identity, discrimination etc. influence life satisfaction. There are many factors which effect immigration decision of individual. One of the most important ones is the economic improvement that they hope to obtain after migration. However, even if there is an absolute increase in the income of the individuals after the migration, their life satisfaction may decrease on the contrary to expectations. Post-migration individuals tend to compare themselves economically and socially with individuals in the country of destination or the country they left behind. Previous studies reveal that relative income is decisive on happiness of immigrants instead of absolute income. This study is a literature review regarding happiness-migration relation.