First Generation Europeans Unhappy, But Not Because of Natives' Xenophobia
It was only the beginning of this year when the United Kingdom reported Xenophobia, or the intolerance of foreigners, was on the rise and for the first time British whites became the minority--representing less than 45 percent of the country's population.
But intolerance is no longer the main reason why migrants in countries like UK feel unhappy. A new study suggests that employment and health concerns are the leading problems threatening European well-being.
"Xenophobia showed no significant impact on the difference between migrant groups and non-migrants on subjective well-being," researchers at the British Sociological Association reported at the annual conference in London.
In the European Social Survey, Professors Andreas Hadjar and Susanne Backes from the University of Luxembourg evaluated 32,000 first and second generation migrants and 164, 700 non-migrants from 30 European countries.
Those who were between the ages of 41 and 60 were 6 percent less happy than those aged 22 to 30. The likely cause would be mutual agreements both migrants and the rest of society face; xenophobia wouldn't change their employment and health problems.
"Both unemployment and deprivation appear to show strong negative impacts on subjective well-being," the researchers said. "However, results also show that on average people with migration background do rather well integrating themselves into European societies - particularly in countries with constructive integration policies."
Factors such as the wealth and length of time spent in the country also influenced a person's well-being. Those who lived in the country for less than 10 years experienced 7 percent less happiness than everyone else, while those who resided in the country for more than 10 years were 3.5 percent less happy.
Also, the more wealthy the country, the more unhappy the migrants. Even today, whether money provides happiness is commonly debated, decades after Richard Easterlin put the field of quantifying happiness on the radar and came up with the Easterlin paradox that detailed how individuals don't necessarily become happier as they gain wealth.
The countries that were surveyed in this study included Austria, Denmark, Spain, Portugal and Germany. Greece and Russia showed the highest scores for xenophobia, while Sweden and Luxembourg had the lowest scores. The whole list can be found here.