Will Happiness Improve the Psychological Integration of Migrant Workers?

Tian-Cheng Li, Chien-Chi Chu, Fan-Cun Meng, Qin Li, Di Mo, Bin Li and Sang-Bing Tsai
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Tian-Cheng Li: College of Economics and Management, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Chien-Chi Chu: Department of Finance, Business School, Shantou University, Shantou 515063, China
Fan-Cun Meng: College of Economics and Management, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Qin Li: College of Economics and Management, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Di Mo: School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, College of Business, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia
Bin Li: Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD 4111, Australia
Sang-Bing Tsai: Zhongshan Institute, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Guangzhou 528400, China

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 5, 1-22

Abstract: Happiness is a major factor that influences people’s perceptions and behavior. Two-stage least squares regression was applied to investigate the effect of happiness on the psychological integration of migrant workers in China. The data for a total of 1625 individuals were obtained from the 2014 China Labor-force Dynamics Survey (CLDS). This study describes happiness from three main aspects: happiness, life satisfaction, and economic satisfaction. The psychological integration includes two dimensions of settlement willingness, and trust level; these have gone through dimension-reduced processing by using the weighted average method. The empirical evidence shows, first, that happiness has a significantly positive effect on the psychological integration of migrant workers and second, that the sense of life satisfaction in particular plays a more significant role. The acceleration of the social and political integration in migrant workers will enhance their psychological integration. Additionally, social, cultural and economic integration is found to influence migrant workers’ psychological integration by promoting happiness. Happiness between different generations of migrant workers was found to have a noticeably positive impact on their psychological integration; however, the happiness of the younger migrant workers was more perceivable than that of the other generations. Preferential policies should therefore be provided to improve the happiness of migrant workers.

Keywords: migrant workers; happiness; psychological integration; psychological health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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