Is immigration good for Europe? Long-run evidence using comprehensive well-being

Kelsey O'Connor

No 1461, GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO)

Abstract: The immigrant (foreign-born) population increased by 32 million in total across 37 European countries from 1990 to 2019. Much of this movement was from east to west. Indeed, both the total and foreign-born populations declined in the former Eastern Bloc over this period. Such demographic shifts could be expected to affect both the immigrant destination and origin countries in diverse ways. However, we find no evidence of positive or negative impacts on aggregate subjective well-being, among both the destination and origin countries. Immigrants, in contrast, experienced increased well-being, converted to monetary terms, in excess of £25,000 per person. Previous research had reduced scopes, e.g., covering destination countries or impacts on income only. We offer more comprehensive evidence, in terms of country and period, and by assessing impacts on subjective well-being, which implicitly includes all of the factors perceived to be important to people, both economic and non-economic.

Keywords: immigration; emigration; migrants; life satisfaction; happiness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I31 J15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec, nep-hap, nep-his, nep-int, nep-ltv and nep-mig
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:glodps:1461

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