Hostility in destination countries and immigrants’ subjective wellbeing

The wellbeing of immigrants is affected by those around them and the context in which they live. Yet we still know relatively little about the impact that non-migrants attitudes toward immigrants (ATI) have on immigrants’ life satisfaction, nor do we know the routes by which it manifests. 

In this presentation, Michaela will explore the association of immigrants’ wellbeing and ATI aggregated on subnational regional level for 22 European countries and then explore this relationship in more depth using the case of the UK. By matching individual data from the UK Understanding Society study to area-level data on ATI for England and Wales from the 2018 European Values Study, Michaela will examine how subnational ATI are associated with immigrants’ life satisfaction. Michaela will further discuss how immigrants relate the destination context and interactions with the destination population to their life satisfaction, which is informative to public and integration policies. Investigation of attitudes towards immigrants is conducive to our knowledge of what creates social and cultural boundaries in destinations and which immigrants, depending on their individual characteristics, are allowed to surpass them and become accepted members of society. Michaela's research advances the current understanding of immigrants’ integration by calling attention to individuals’ wellbeing as a subjective measure of this integration.

This event will be particularly useful for those interested in demography, migration and urban studies.

Please note this is a hybrid event and can be joined either in-person or online.

Related links

• Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS)
• Quantitative Social Science (QSS)
• QSS and CLS Seminar series
• UCL Social Research Institute