Refugees in Germany with Children Still Living Abroad Have Lowest Life Satisfaction

Ludovica Gambaro, Michaela Kreyenfeld, Diana Schacht and Katharina Spiess ()

DIW Weekly Report, 2018, vol. 8, issue 42, 415-425

Abstract: Family strongly influences personal well-being—especially in the case of refugees, whose family members often remain in their homeland. This report is the first to closely examine the well-being and family structures of refugees who came to Germany between January 2013 and January 2016. It uses data from the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees in Germany. Among individuals aged between 18 and 49, nine percent have minor children living outside Germany, whereas twelve percent have a husband or wife living abroad. If the nuclear family is living in Germany—which is more often the case for women than men—refugees are measurably more satisfied with their lives. These findings are also confirmed when accounting for other potential factors for well-being. These findings should be given greater consideration—not least in the debate on family reunification—to enable successful migration, integration, and family policies.

Keywords: Refugees; family structure; family reunification; children; well-being (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H31 I31 J12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.603111.de/dwr-18-42-2.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:diw:diwdwr:dwr8-42-2

Access Statistics for this article

DIW Weekly Report is currently edited by Tomaso Duso, Marcel Fratzscher, Peter Haan, Claudia Kemfert, Alexander Kritikos, Alexander Kriwoluzky, Stefan Liebig, Lukas Menkhoff, Karsten Neuhoff, Carsten Schröder, Katharina Wrohlich and Sabine Fiedler

More articles in DIW Weekly Report from DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Bibliothek ().