Print Email Facebook Twitter Does migration make you happy? A longitudinal study of internal migration and subjective well-being Title Does migration make you happy? A longitudinal study of internal migration and subjective well-being Author Nowok, B. Van Ham, M. Findlay, A.M. Gayle, V. Faculty OTB Research Institute for the Built Environment Date 2013-01-01 Abstract Marie Curie programme under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / Career Integration Grant n. PCIG10-GA-2011-303728 (CIG Grant NBHCHOICE, Neighbourhood choice, neighbourhood sorting, and neighbourhood effects). The majority of quantitative studies on the consequences of internal migration focus almost exclusively on the labour-market outcomes and the material well-being of migrants. We investigate whether individuals who migrate within the UK become happier after the move than they were before, and whether the effect is permanent or transient. Using life-satisfaction responses from twelve waves of the British Household Panel Survey and employing a fixed-effects model, we derive a temporal pattern of migrants’ subjective well-being around the time of the migration event. Our findings make an original contribution by revealing that, on average, migration is preceded by a period when individuals experience a significant decline in happiness for a variety of reasons, including changes in personal living arrangements. Migration itself causes a boost in happiness, and brings people back to their initial levels. The research contributes, therefore, to advancing an understanding of migration in relation to set-point theory. Perhaps surprisingly, long-distance migrants are at least as happy as short-distance migrants despite the higher social and psychological costs involved. The findings of this paper add to the pressure to retheorize migration within a conceptual framework that accounts for social well-being from a life-course perspective. Subject internal migrationsubjective well-beinghappinesspanel modelset-point theory To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:baf3334d-7c8e-4a2d-92b6-53ffd2ddcb5e Publisher Pion Embargo date 2014-01-01 ISSN 0308-518X Source Environment and Planning A, 45 (4), 2013; Authors version (post-print) Other version https://doi.org/10.1068/a45287 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights (c) 2013 Pion Files PDF ENGPR_040_POST_PRINT_2013 ... _happy.pdf 598.42 KB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:baf3334d-7c8e-4a2d-92b6-53ffd2ddcb5e/datastream/OBJ/view