Immigrants’ subjective wellbeing in Europe: variation by regional attitudes towards immigrants

Research shows that immigrants’ wellbeing varies with the environment where they live. This variation’s potential but under-researched driver is non-migrants’ attitude towards immigrants (ATI). Using pooled European Social Survey data (2010-2018) for 22 destination countries, I address the question, ‘Are more positive ATI in regions where immigrants live associated with their higher life satisfaction?’. To answer it, I estimate models of life satisfaction regressed on a summed index of 6 measures of ATI aggregated to the regional level and control for individual-level predictors and country, year, and origin fixed effects. I find a significant association between more negative regional ATI and lower immigrant wellbeing. Its strength is comparable with the most important known individual-level predictors of wellbeing (e.g. education). My results further show that the association varies depending on the length of stay at the destination (only those more recently arrived are affected). Despite well-attested links between feelings of discrimination and wellbeing, I show that those who express greater discrimination are not more sensitive to ATI. This suggests that each measure speaks to a separate mechanism of experiencing discrimination. Showing that ATI is strongly related to migrants’ wellbeing implies that the lived environment should be at the forefront of the migration outcomes research