In Transit: The Well-Being of Migrants from Transition and Post-Transition Countries

Milena Nikolova and Carol Graham

No 8520, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The extant literature has focused on migration's consequences for the receiving countries. In this paper, we ask a different but important question: how much do migrants gain from moving to another country? Using Gallup World Poll data and a methodology combining statistical matching with difference-in-differences, we assess migration's effects on the well-being of migrants from transition economies. We contribute to the literature by showing that in addition to increasing household income, migration enhances subjective well-being and satisfaction with freedom. The results are robust to sensitivity checks. Understanding the causal effects of migration on perceived and actual well-being is crucial for an informed public policy debate and has direct implications for social cohesion and integration policy.

Keywords: subjective well-being; transition economies; migration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 I31 J61 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57 pages
Date: 2014-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap, nep-mig and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published - published in: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization , 2015, 112, 164-186

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp8520.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: In transit: The well-being of migrants from transition and post-transition countries (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8520

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().