International Migration, Open Borders
Debates, and Happiness
Forthcoming in
International Studies Review
David Bartram
Department of Sociology
University of Leicester
University Road
Leicester LE1 7RH
England
t: +44 116 252 2724
f: +44 116 252 5259
[email protected]
This is a preprint of an Article accepted for publication in International Studies Review.
©2010, the International Studies Association
International Migration, Open Borders
Debates, and Happiness
Abstract:
Arguments for “open borders” typically assume that migration from poorer countries to
wealthy countries generally makes the migrants themselves better off; indeed, many
discussions of ethics concerning immigration policy depend heavily on this assumption.
But there are several grounds for wondering whether it is at least partly unfounded for
economic migrants (if not for refugees), particularly if “better off” is specified in terms of
happiness. Research on happiness casts doubt on the notion that increases in income
contribute significantly to happiness; this article extends those doubts to the notion that
one can increase happiness by gaining more income via labor migration. Certain
processes (e.g. adaptation, social comparisons) might work in counterintuitive ways for
immigrants, perhaps inhibiting happiness despite ostensible economic gains. Arguments
against immigration restrictions might therefore need to focus more on the dysfunctions
of restrictions themselves and less on putative benefits to migrants from migration.
keywords: international migration, ethics, happiness
Acknowledgements: I would like to thank the following people for providing comments
on earlier drafts of this paper: Jack Barbalet, Laura Brace, Alan Cromartie, Fiona Gill,
Barbara Misztal, Libby Schweber, and Jamie Warner. I am especially grateful to the
anonymous referees, whose feedback was among the best I have ever received in a
review process. The revisions to this paper were completed during a period of study
leave at the University of Leicester.
“Industry boom in America;
Twelve in a room in America”
– West Side Story
Does migration to wealthy countries make immigrants themselves better off? Many people,
particularly those advocating “open borders”, appear to assume it does; some probably think
the answer is obvious and the question absurd. On its face, this assumption seems
uncontroversial enough: if it were unwarranted, why would millions continue to try to gain
entry in the face of considerable resistance, often taking on mind-boggling levels of debt and
sometimes even significant risk of injury or death? More basically, wealthy countries are,
almost by definition, taken to be good places to live, certainly in comparison to poorer
countries – so who in their right mind would not want to live “here”?
This paper exposes some weaknesses in the foundations of this assumption. I do not
go as far as to conclude that migration generally makes immigrants worse off. But I argue
that the assumption that migration generally makes immigrants better off is more an article of
faith than an established empirical proposition, a likely consequence of reducing “better off”
to its narrowest economic connotation. I then consider some consequences of this point for
debates on immigration policy.
The focus here is on labor/economic migration, as against some other forms where
the benefits to migrants would appear to be less open to question. In many cases the purpose
of migration is family reunification, and I am less inclined toward a critique of the notion that
families are better off when united (living in the same place). Likewise, the concept of
refugee migration would seem to necessitate the conclusion that those who succeed in
finding refuge from persecution and danger of death are indeed better off; when the starting
point is risk of torture or death, almost anything else is an improvement.
But when migration is reasonably a matter of choice and the migrant’s goal is simply
to improve his or her well-being, we might wonder: is that goal usually achieved? I will
argue that a definitive general answer to this question is probably not possible – a significant
conclusion, to the extent that it means a definitive “yes” is not possible, contrary to a
widespread belief that migration is usually beneficial.
2
This conclusion comes from consideration of recent research on happiness emerging
primarily in the intersection of economics and psychology. As against the behaviorist
premises of neo-classical economics, happiness research (or the study of “subjective wellbeing”) works with a notion of well-being that cannot simply be inferred from observed
behavior in the market. It thus enables exploration of the common-sense notion that gaining
more money (or possessions) does not necessarily make one happier. By extension, we will
consider the possibility that moving to a wealthier country does not necessarily make one
happier. We will also entertain a more pessimistic proposition: some findings of happiness
research can be used to derive the implication that migration might make some immigrants
less happy than if they had stayed put. The conditions under which that implication is
plausible are by no means general for all immigrants – but they are perhaps common enough
to temper enthusiasm for the notion that immigration generally improves one’s well-being.
To be interested in the connection between migration and happiness, some might
require a justification of the notion that happiness is ethically important in general. Sumner
(1996) offers a robust defense of “welfarism”, the claim that welfare (defined as “authentic
happiness”) is all that matters for ethics. As Sen notes (1980), this is an extreme position,
despite its superficial appeal. Fortunately there is no need to embrace such a radical view;
for our purposes it is sufficient to accept Sumner’s weaker version of this claim: “No theory
which fails to find a place for well-being … could possibly tell the whole story about the
good” (1996:195). I will argue below that migration ethicists generally assume that
migration improves immigrants’ well-being (or, at least, their opportunity for well-being).
To the extent that this argument appears unconvincing because this or that writer is
apparently unconcerned with well-being, then following Sumner I conclude that something
important is missing from the analysis. In general, however, I will claim that the assumption
of benefit is at a minimum implicit in the core questions migration ethicists ask.
In certain respects, connecting happiness research to international migration might
simply sharpen a set of insights already present in some of the sociological and
anthropological research on the latter. We know that many immigrants face very difficult
circumstances. Filipina domestic workers around the world, for example, experience some
pervasive “dislocations” (Parreñas, 2001), including family separation, partial citizenship,
and alienation from the migrant community. Disruptions to family life can be particularly
3
traumatic; some Mexican immigrants in the US, wary of American culture, send their
adolescent children back to live with grandparents in Mexico, creating what Smith describes
as a “transnational disaster” (2006:237). There are two relevant implications one may draw
from studies in this vein. One might conclude that, however difficult the circumstances of
immigrants in wealthy countries, life in their country of origin must have been worse. The
alternative possibility is that, contrary to hopes and expectations, migration did not result in
the desired improvement. The former option is implicit in many discussions of the ethics of
immigration policies; this paper proposes consideration of the latter as a plausible alternative
in some cases and suggests some key questions for future research.
ASSUMPTIONS AND OMISSIONS IN “OPEN BORDERS” DISCUSSIONS
The issue of whether migration is beneficial to immigrants is important for discussions of
migration policy and ethics – particularly those considering the “open borders” proposition.
A significant strand of migration scholarship asks whether restrictions on immigration are
justified. Often the answer one gives to that question depends on whether one perceives that
immigration is beneficial or costly for citizens of the receiving country. In most discussions
of the ethics of immigration policies, however, the question turns on what sort of
consideration to give to the migrants themselves. Arguments in this vein distinguish between
self-interest and ethics (Isbister, 1996). While many discussions of policy focus on the
interests of receiving countries, writers engaging with the question of open borders treat that
focus itself as part of the question: to what extent must we also consider the interests of the
migrants themselves, as “outsiders”? For some observers, it is illegitimate for citizens of
wealthy countries to preserve their advantages by excluding others whose poverty and
deprivation results primarily from the accident of birth/geography (or, in Tushnet’s
formulation (1995): the “lumpy” distribution of resources across arbitrary borders).
Alternatively, some writers, sensitive to the challenge posed by that view, believe it is
nonetheless legitimate for citizens to place priority on their obligations to one another.
The point here is that the question itself is worth posing in this way only to the extent
we are confident that migration is indeed likely to benefit those who migrate. (Some might
prefer to say that migration simply needs to offer opportunities for benefiting, but the issue
depends in part on the likelihood of benefiting. Even for those who are mainly concerned
4
with opportunity for welfare, it nonetheless seems entirely reasonable, indeed necessary, to
consider welfare – after all, the point is opportunity for welfare.) If there are significant
doubts about that idea, the question itself appears in a different light.
The notion that migration is beneficial appears readily in a number of contributions.
It is particularly salient in a recent Human Development Report, which confidently asserts
that most migrants experience improved well-being, particularly in relation to income, health,
and education (United Nations Development Programme, 2009). The emphasis in this report
is on “objective well-being”, inspired by Sen’s capabilities approach to development (Sen,
1999), and discussion of happiness is limited to cross-sectional comparisons finding
similarities between migrants’ and non-migrants’ reported happiness in destination countries.
The report refrains from advocating fully open borders but advocates for greatly expanded
opportunities for migration as a means of enhancing well-being particularly for migrants.
In some instances, this view is explicitly recognized as an assumption: “in most cases
one assumes that the benefits [to immigrants] substantially outweigh the costs…”
(Trebilcock, 1995:221). Ruhs and Chang hold (2004:80) that “[b]y revealed preference, the
consequences of voluntary migration are likely to be positive for most labor migrants…” – a
conclusion tempered, they say, by the likelihood of imperfect information. In other
contributions, one encounters statements that are bolder, less cognizant of the assumption
being made. Harris (2002), for example, views unrestricted migration as a means of
eradicating global poverty as migrants would simply go where the jobs are. And Chang
writes that “immigrants also gain from their own migration” (2008:5) and refers to the
“significant harm suffered by those excluded from our labor market” (2008:16).
In a watershed article, Carens argued that immigration generally ought to be
unrestricted – in large part because “[c]itizenship in Western liberal democracies … greatly
enhances one’s life chances” (1987:252).1 One core liberal value advanced by open borders
is individual liberty, presumably for its own sake (apart from any welfare-enhancing
consequences). But in this and a later (1992) article the argument turns to a significant extent
on the benefits (in part economic, though Carens also suggests love, religion, and cultural
opportunities) migrants expect to enjoy from migration, benefits that citizens of wealthy
1
Carens modified his views slightly in subsequent papers, acknowledging a place for
consideration of culture in thinking about restrictions (e.g. 1992, 1999).
5
countries can reserve for themselves only by ignoring the position they would adopt under
the “veil of ignorance” – a conclusion also drawn by Hudson (1986). While that phrase
highlights Carens’ use of Rawls, Carens makes his open borders argument also on utilitarian
(and Nozickean!) grounds, noting that a utilitarian calculus must take account of the utility
gains to migrants, not only the putative losses to natives. Only threats to public order
(Carens, 1987) or the prospect of being “submerged” (Dummett, 2001) might legitimately
limit the point – a threat that Dummett at least takes to be currently non-existent with respect
to existing wealthy societies.
This position, commonly described as liberal egalitarianism, emerges from two basic
principles: first, equal opportunities for all, and second, “all” really means all, globally, not
just the members of a particular political entity (cf. Dummett, 1992; Cole, 2000). In this
perspective, wealthy societies, confronted with global poverty, have two choices: provide
enough foreign assistance to reduce inequalities, or, “[i]f we cannot move enough money to
where the needy people are, then we will have to count on moving as many of the needy
people as possible to where the money is” (Barry and Goodin, 1992:8).2 The equivalence of
these two options is significant: foreign aid and freedom of movement are both taken to be
effective means of enabling people in poor countries to improve their life circumstances.3
We have a moral obligation to mitigate gross inequality, and so we must grant freedom of
movement (or, if that is politically impossible, significantly increase foreign aid budgets).
Again, this argument makes sense only if migration actually enables migrants to improve
their quality of life (assuming that quality of life is ethically important).
To the extent that open borders arguments draw on Rawls4 (though again Carens and
others also invoke other perspectives), it might be imagined that they are incompatible with
2
cf. Pogge, 1997; Kymlicka, 2001; and Ugur, 2007. Pogge and Kymlicka clearly prefer
redistribution over open borders. However, while open borders is described by Kymlicka as
“hopelessly naïve” (2001:250), redistribution on the proper scale is “wildly unrealistic”
(2001:271).
3
In a critique that has some parallels with this paper, some observers also doubt that foreign
aid is beneficial to recipients (e.g. Maren, 1997).
4
Rawls himself can hardly be described as a liberal egalitarian in relation to migration,
particularly given his brief comments on migration in The Law of Peoples (1999); as many
6
an ostensibly utilitarian focus on happiness. This objection is misplaced. In the first
instance, a concern with happiness need not entail adherence to a utilitarian perspective; one
can discuss “utility” without committing oneself to utilitarianism (in the sense of arguing that
utility must be maximized; cf. Sumner, 1996, especially ch. 7), and so it must be possible
also to discuss happiness without such a commitment.5 Moreover, contractualism can hardly
be said to be indifferent to human well-being. As Scanlon notes, “Individual well-being will
be morally significant, according to contractualism, not because it is intrinsically valuable or
because promoting it is self-evidently a right-making characteristic, but simply because an
individual could reasonably reject a form of argument that gave his well-being no weight”
(1982:118-119). Even if we refrain from adopting a welfarist version of egalitarianism and
focus on opportunity for welfare (or opportunity for advantage, as Cohen (1989) would have
it), the underlying motivation of egalitarianism nonetheless emerges from our concern for
people’s well-being. The claim that happiness is a relevant form of well-being rests on the
entirely sensible contention that many (though certainly not all) other “goods” are reasonably
considered instrumental, valuable in part because of their contribution to one’s happiness.
When drawing on Rawls, Carens might prefer to speak of the opportunity for pursuing one’s
“rational life plan” as the good that must be made available to migrants via open borders, but
it would be a very strange conception of rational life plans that excluded on principle any
concern with happiness (even if happiness/welfare itself is not what is to be equalized in the
liberal egalitarianism perspective).
More generally it matters that the question is typically framed specifically in relation
to migration from poor countries to wealthy countries. Migrants themselves (those in the
category relevant in this paper, labor migrants in particular) usually assume that the benefits
of migration emerge from the fact of the destination country being wealthier; the latter is
typically where they choose to go.6 This is the type of migration that scholars write about in
writers have noted (e.g. Kymlicka, 2001; Beitz, 1983), Rawls’s core arguments treat
borders/membership as fixed and refrain from addressing justice at a global level.
5
Some argue that one encounters difficulties in trying to sustain a distinction between
Rawls’s arguments and utilitarianism (Goldman, 1980; Narveson, 1982).
6
Migration among developing countries has been increasing in recent years, but the increase
in migration to wealthy countries has been even faster (Ratha and Shaw, 2007).
7
discussions of the ethics of migration policy; migration of, say, American retirees to Costa
Rica is hardly representative of the concerns addressed in this literature – a point that Carens
makes in a discussion (1992) of how the question changes when applied to movement
between countries at equivalent levels of development. Migration ethicists ask: must this
type of migration (from poor to wealthy countries) be permitted? The force of the question –
the reason people feel compelled to answer it (in lieu of peremptory dismissal) – consists in
the implicit idea that migrants are/could be better off for having gained entry to a wealthy
country. “Better off” is not made explicitly equivalent to well-being or happiness in these
writings, and there are excellent arguments holding that other values are independently
important, irrespective of subjective consequences (e.g. Sen, 1982). But to the extent that
even a partial equivalence of this sort would be explicitly rejected, then as promised above I
conclude that something important is missing from a discussion of ethics. One of the core
goals of this paper is to make that connection explicit in relation to migration – in a way that
has not hitherto been done – so that it can be examined and evaluated.
Migration is sometimes considered a second-best option for addressing distributional
concerns. To the extent that motivations for migration are economic, Seglow holds “it is
better to shift resources to people, rather than permitting people to shift themselves towards
resources” (2005:329). One reason, of particular interest here, is that we must consider “noneconomic sources of well-being” (Seglow, 2005:327) as well as resources. In the end,
however, Seglow does not pursue implications of that intriguing suggestion – i.e., the
implication that a direct investigation of well-being and migration might be instructive – and
returns instead to a conclusion that seems to embrace a version of the open-borders position:
until deep inequities in life chances are addressed through redistribution, “rich states have
substantial duties to admit poor outsiders” (2005:329). Others (e.g. Bader, 1997, 2005)
dispute the notion that migration would be effective in alleviating global poverty; at best it
would likely benefit only a relative few. Nonetheless, even in this perspective migration is
considered indeed beneficial to those who can accomplish it.
The view that migration is beneficial is held by some restrictionists as well.
Restrictionists generally feel obliged to defend their position precisely because they
acknowledge (if that is the right word) that migration would allow immigrants to improve
their lot. In other words, if we in wealthy societies are to adopt policies that have the effect
8
of preventing people in poorer countries from enjoying our standard of living, then we had
better have good reasons for doing so, beyond simple self-interest. It can no longer be taken
for granted that exclusion is self-evidently legitimate (Booth, 1997); Carens writes simply:
“Exclusion has to be justified” (1999:1083; cf. Whelan, 1988). For Walzer, the question
arises because “[a]ffluent and free countries are, like élite universities, besieged by
applicants” (1983:32) – besieged no doubt because they are affluent and free, or rather
because would-be immigrants hope to enjoy the affluence and freedom those countries
provide. Walzer accepts that wealthy countries cannot escape obligations to the destitute and
stateless, but where those conditions do not hold he finds grounds to permit restrictions that
will prevent many from enjoying membership in desirable societies (cf. Miller, 2005). But
the point here is that the need to defend this position arises because of the notion that
immigration is beneficial to someone who wishes to undertake it and can therefore be
prevented only with good reason. Miller as well, in defending the right of a state to restrict
immigration, is cognizant of “those whose position is worsened by the boundaries [the
potential receiving state] defends…” (2007:221). And both Tamir (1992) and Tan (2004),
who consider immigration restrictions a legitimate part of liberal nationalism, argue that such
restrictions are permissible only to the extent that the deprivations of people in poorer
countries are addressed (which means however that, given current inequalities, their positions
do not really amount to restrictionism in the sense of justifying current practices).
In some instances, the restrictionist case is mounted without a great deal of explicit
attention to the interests of would-be migrants. But those interests are nonetheless implicit in
the form of the question some authors address: is it legitimate to give preference to
compatriots (e.g. Meilaender, 2001)? This question implies another clause, one that refers to
the entity whose interests would come second. That is, it asks whether it is legitimate to give
priority to the interests of existing citizens over the interests of would-be migrants. Even
when those latter interests are not specified, they are an essential component of the question –
and perhaps, more than that, they are the reason it is worth addressing.
It goes too far to state that all scholars who write about ethics and immigration
policies believe that migration benefits immigrants. Many writers do not address that aspect
of the question at all – perhaps assuming that anyone who wants to migrate must have
adequate reasons for doing so, such that it is not for anyone else to second-guess the validity
9
of those reasons or intentions. That assumption is surely sufficient from a libertarian point of
view (Steiner, 1992) and perhaps from a natural law perspective as well (Dummett, 1992).
Indeed, some writers seem to reject entirely the notion that we should be concerned
with consequences of migration; instead, the right to migrate is simply that: a right. In an
extensive analysis of liberal political philosophy and borders, where he argues that
immigration controls are in fundamental contradiction with the liberal emphasis on equal
moral worth of individuals, Cole refers only in passing to the impact of such controls on the
“welfare of the non-citizens who wish to enter” (2000:50). Consider also Sutcliffe: “Free,
and ideally completely free, movement of people is desirable in itself because it would
represent an immense expansion of freedom of people to be, live, and work where they
choose” (1998:328). In a similar vein, Hayter (2000) argues that the freedom of movement
we take for granted within (most) countries should be extended to encompass a right of free
movement across borders; while she too gives passing mention to the notion that migrants are
often motivated by a desire to improve their economic circumstances, the overall thrust of
her argument is simply that migration is a fundamental human right (cf. Barsky, 2001).
But this is a rather empty way of looking at the question. People generally don’t
move simply because they want to move; migration – especially international migration – is
usually a way of accomplishing some other goal. It then makes sense to ask: does migration
generally enable people to accomplish those goals?
ECONOMICS, PSYCHOLOGY, AND HAPPINESS
As framed here, those goals often relate to income: essentially by definition, the core purpose
of labor migration is to increase one’s income by working in a different (typically wealthier)
country. But does the extra income gained this way produce greater happiness? This
question as it relates to international migration has received very little attention, but a survey
of happiness research more generally suggests some possible answers. Some of these
answers have a deep affinity with folk wisdom: more money does not necessarily bring more
happiness. As Oswald notes, “Economic performance is not intrinsically interesting”
(1997:1815); well-being at a deeper level is. To the extent that labor migrants are motivated
primarily by the prospect of increased income, they might act on a more general “mistake”
10
made by many: believing that money is more important for happiness than it in fact is
(Gilbert, 2006).
Happiness is generally defined as “subjective well-being”, so that survey respondents
are free to define it in their own terms when reporting their own happiness levels (Easterlin
2001). Two considerations help contain the ostensible anarchy of that definition and
associated modes of measurement. First, it has been extensively validated (Kenny 1999;
Frey and Stutzer, 2002), in part via brain-scan research confirming that, when people report
they are happy, the relevant (predicted) areas of their brains are more active (see Layard 7
2005 for a summary). Second, responses are generally comparable, even among individuals
from very different contexts: most people have high levels of agreement about the sources of
happiness, such that people’s use of the word points generally to a shared understanding of
its referent (Easterlin, 2001). There are different approaches to measurement: surveys can
ask questions about life satisfaction, or about positive affect, for example. However, I can
think of no way in which these different approaches would lead to different conclusions for
the question posed here, i.e., the connection between migration and happiness.
There are some key differences between this approach and ideas implicit in
conventional economics. In an earlier tradition of economics, happiness was a central
concern (Kenny, 1999; Frey and Stutzer, 2002); utilitarian theory, in particular, was premised
on the notion that happiness was the ultimate goal. In the twentieth century, however, a core
principle of this perspective was jettisoned, particularly in the frame of “revealed
preferences”: instead of considering intrinsic (or cardinal) utility, conventional economics
simply assumes that, for any income level, the choice to engage in one transaction instead of
another means that one is in fact better off for having chosen the former (thus ordinal utility).
Neo-classical economics thus rests on deeply held behaviourist assumptions (Layard, 2005;
cf. Kahneman et al., 1997). As Easterlin notes, “A major implication of this theory is that
one can improve well-being by increasing one’s income” (2005a:30).
7
There is a significant irony in using Layard for a critique of the assumption that
immigration makes immigrants better off. He writes: “The main argument in favour of
immigration is of course the gain to the migrants” (2005:180). However, there is no
elaboration on what those benefits are.
11
Happiness research, by investigating happiness directly instead of deriving it from
behavior, treats that implication as an empirical matter rather than an axiomatic assumption.
Evidence on the question is mixed. Wealthier people are, at a very broad level, happier than
poorer people – and people in wealthy countries are in general happier than people in poorer
countries (e.g. Diener, 2008). But that cross-sectional point exists alongside a longitudinal
finding that proves to be more relevant to the connection between migration and happiness:
increasing income does not necessarily lead to greater happiness (Easterlin, 1974). Frey and
Stutzer (2002) as well note that average levels of happiness in Japan were unchanged
between 1958 and 1991, despite a six-fold increase in per capita income – a pattern found
more generally for nine European countries by Oswald (1997; see also Lane, 2000; but see
Stevenson and Wolfers, 2008, for a discussion of how changes in question wording in Japan
might have resulted in an underestimate of the effect of income). Moreover, the aggregate
cross-sectional relationship between country-level income and happiness levels, while robust
in certain specifications, coexists with substantial variation around the various trend lines. In
particular, some countries (e.g. Nigeria and Mexico) have much higher levels of happiness
than their incomes (and other measures of development) would predict, and others (e.g.
Russia and Ukraine) have much lower levels (Leigh and Wolfers, 2006).
The claim that rising income does not in general bring rising happiness has been
challenged by a number of researchers in recent years. There is some limited evidence
(particularly from Eastern Europe) that demonstrates an effect of income in a longitudinal
sense: life satisfaction in East Germany rose following reunification, a finding Frijters et al.
(2004) attribute in part to increasing income (see also Ferrer-i-Carbonell, 2005). A small
percentage of changes in life satisfaction in Russia can be similarly explained by shifts in
income (though in this case the movement was downwards until 1998) (Frijters et al., 2006;
see also Ravallion and Lokshin, 2002 who, while acknowledging the role of income,
emphasize the large effect of other factors). Hagerty and Veenhoven (2003) disagree with
Easterlin’s earlier reading of data on the effects of changes in national income.8 And
Stevenson and Wolfers (2008), in a direct assault on Easterlin’s core claim, assert that the
cross-sectional country-level correlation between per-capita GDP and happiness is stronger
8
For his rebuttal, see Easterlin, 2005b.
12
than previously understood, particularly when the income variable is logged. All the same,
the evidence for a longitudinal relationship is reasonably described as weak: even Stevenson
and Wolfers write that “[t]he time-series part of our analysis is necessarily only
suggestive…” (2008:29).9 While (as Stevenson and Wolfers remind us) absence of evidence
is not evidence of absence, there are still grounds for skepticism concerning the notion that
increases in income generally bring increases in happiness – particularly if those increases in
income are accomplished via migration.
To understand the apparent contradiction between the cross-sectional and longitudinal
findings (the “Easterlin paradox”), three psychological processes are particularly relevant.
One is adaptation: a repeated or continued stimulus produces a diminishing response
(Frederick and Loewenstein, 1999). We might initially gain pleasure from a newly
purchased item, but that pleasure then diminishes, often rapidly (Scitovsky, 1992).
Adaptation applies directly to the experience of earning a higher level of income, in
particular (Easterlin, 2001).
Second, happiness or satisfaction is achieved not by a “high” income per se but by an
income that matches our aspirations. One’s aspirations increase with one’s income, perhaps
as a consequence of adaptation to earlier gains (Easterlin, 2001; Frey and Stutzer, 2002);
aspirations also rise in line with the average aspirations of the community in which one lives
(Stutzer, 2003; cf. Hagerty, 2000). In general, people might match their aspirations to their
income rather than vice versa (van Praag and Frijters, 1999). And as folk wisdom suggests,
people who emphasize material aspirations over other types report lower degrees of life
satisfaction (Richins and Dawson, 1992; Kasser, 2003).
The third issue is comparison and relative income: happiness is affected by the degree to
which one considers oneself better off than others in a particular reference group (Clark and
Oswald, 1996; Clarke et al., 2008). Again, wealthier people are happier on average than
poorer people – but a key reason is that they can perceive themselves as being superior in
status to others (as opposed to the enjoyment of more or better consumption opportunities).
However, at any particular income level, much depends on how one defines the relevant
9
One might also anticipate a response to Stevenson and Wolfers by Easterlin and perhaps
others; there would be risks associated with treating the most recent paper as a new definitive
consensus.
13
reference group; there are advantages to comparing downwards rather than upwards (Layard,
2005; cf. Falk and Knell, 2004).
These considerations reinforce the notion that, as long as one’s material
circumstances fall above a certain minimum, increases in income do not necessarily bring
sustained increased happiness. Life circumstances in general do matter for happiness (as
against strong versions of “set-point theory”), but the circumstances that matter most relate to
family/community and health (Frank, 1999). Given limited time, actions that prioritize
material goals over family and health are in general misguided (assuming happiness as the
fundamental goal). Many individuals do give priority to material goals, sometimes despite
repeated disappointment, but this tendency is perhaps best described simply as a mistake – or
rather as part of a series of mistakes that are “lawful, regular, and systematic” and moreover
can be explained in the perspective of evolutionary psychology10 (Gilbert, 2006:xvi). To
hold that the prevalence of such choices proves otherwise, in the face of extensive survey
evidence, is to reproduce that error at the scholarly level via a return to “revealed
preferences.”
It bears emphasizing that one’s happiness is of course determined not just by income
but by a variety of non-material factors as well: family relationships, community, health,
meaningful employment (for its own sake, not simply for income), freedom, etc. (Layard,
2005). That much is obvious; but a point particularly relevant here is that, in many cases,
higher incomes might be achieved only with sacrifices in some of these other areas (a point
well worth considering in relation to migration, as we will see). Clark et al. refer to the
pursuit of growth as an “arms race”; “at the individual level, these kinds of status-races can
lead to suboptimal outcomes if they crowd out non-status activities” (2008:102), for example
leisure time and family activities.
10
Gilbert notes that psychological traits (e.g. acquisitiveness) are reproduced not because
they contribute to happiness but because they constitute a competitive advantage for those
who have them. “Post-materialism” might offer a better foundation for happiness, but in an
environment marked by economic competition it faces a reproductive challenge – at least to
the extent that one accepts the premises of evolutionary psychology.
14
IMPLICATIONS OF HAPPINESS RESEARCH
As noted above, labor migration refers to the attempt to increase one’s income via
migration (relative to what is available in the origin country). The discussion in the previous
section indicates that attempts to increase income in general, even if successful, might not
result in increased happiness. On the other hand, recent research suggests there might be a
stronger longitudinal relationship than hitherto appreciated between income and happiness.
But that relationship emerges from evidence relating to events/processes within countries.
Can we extrapolate to the notion that migration to a wealthier country typically increases
happiness? To assume the answer is yes is to overlook the possibility that how one gains
additional income might matter for one’s happiness: perhaps getting a raise or a new, more
lucrative job (e.g. in the same city) has quite different consequences than moving to a foreign
country.11 In other words, even if further research resolves the Easterlin paradox by showing
that it doesn’t exist (via demonstration of a hitherto unappreciated longitudinal relationship),
one might still wonder whether increasing one’s income via migration leads to greater
happiness. This section explores some deductive implications that add up to a pessimistic
answer to that question.
In a conventional economic view, the benefits of migration are obvious. Given that
labor/economic migration often (though not always) involves movement from poorer
countries to wealthier countries, it would be implausible to imagine that migrants do not
succeed in increasing their income. Of course, there are costs that might be harder to
measure: dreadful housing conditions (the import of the lyrics from West Side Story
appearing at the beginning), separation from family, 12 need to function in a new language,
11
Research on the impact for happiness of gaining a higher income does not appear to have
considered the possibility that different ways of getting more money might matter differently
for happiness. Even if it were possible to treat the means and the end as analytically separate
(thus finding a net effect of income itself), it would be impossible to separate them in
practice, as it were. In any event, exploring this question would appear to offer a significant
research opportunity so far overlooked.
From a Washington Post story on remittances by migrants from El Salvador: “‘Last week,
my husband came for a visit to see the new house, and he said to me, “My love, we are living
our dream!”’ Alvarez recounted, dabbing tears from her eyes. ‘But this is not my dream. My
dream was to live my life with my husband.’” (Aizenmen, 2006) On the other hand, I am
assuming here that separation from family and friends is generally experienced as a cost.
12
15
etc. Regarding an earlier era, Handlin (1973:95) writes about the “shattering loneliness” and
alienation experienced by immigrants in the US. But among more recent temporary
migrants, a significant proportion in some migration systems make repeated trips over
several decades (Massey et al., 1987), which suggests that many who migrate in this mode
are in no doubt themselves about the benefits of doing so. Many of those who remain rooted
in their country of origin certainly do succeed in increasing their income – as evidenced in
the building of larger houses, acquisition of imported consumer goods, investment in local
businesses, etc.
As discussed above, however, assessment of benefits in relation to immigration ought
to dig deeper and not rest content with a putative equivalence between extra income and
increased welfare or well-being. There are but few efforts to draw on “happiness studies” for
this purpose. Vohra and Adair (2000) investigate variation in life satisfaction among
immigrants in Winnipeg, but their question is cross-sectional rather than longitudinal; a paper
by Ying (1996) is similar in this respect. In a conference paper that has an affinity with the
arguments presented here, Borraz et al. (2007) ask about the impact of migration on the
family left behind and find (on the basis of data similar to those of the World Values Survey)
that their happiness is decreased, even after accounting for the effect of remittances.
First, we might consider not only the fulfillment of aspirations enabled by the extra
income but also the trajectory of the aspirations themselves. Even in relation to temporary
migration: a two-year spell in the US might make it possible to build or purchase a larger
house and to acquire some nice consumer goods – but it might also entail exposure to a level
of affluence that leads ultimately to the feeling that one must have even more. Possibly the
overall result is not greater satisfaction but rather greater discontent and envy; indeed, this
might be the reason for making repeated trips – so that the initial trip is the first step onto an
ever-accelerating treadmill. Or one’s urge to migrate might have been spurred in the first
instance by watching one’s neighbors return from the US and proceed to build larger houses
and to acquire some nice consumer goods. In this instance migration is not a path to greater
happiness than one had before but is necessary simply to preserve or restore a pre-existing
This is not necessarily the case. In fact, some people might migrate in part precisely to put
distance between oneself and a parent or spouse whom one considers overbearing, etc. All
the same, it seems reasonable to assume that in general separation from family is undesired.
16
level. Even if one is first in one’s village to pursue this path, the benefits from doing so
might prove temporary to some degree, if the added welfare comes in part from an increase
in relative position which is then eroded by emulation. In both cases the notion that
migration has produced benefits acquires a degree of ambiguity.
These points might hold to an even greater extent for people who settle in a wealthy
country. The extra income might be sufficient to achieve purchasing power greater than
one’s income in the source country, but that purchasing power might quickly come to seem
inadequate, once one has absorbed some of the consumption expectations common in
wealthy societies. An immigrant might experience a sense of gratitude for any increase in
standard of living. But a sense of deprivation is also possible. The outcome – gratitude vs.
deprivation – probably depends in part on the personality or temperament of the immigrant,
not only on the magnitude of the change in income (cf. Diener et al., 1999). It seems worth
considering that a sense of deprivation is the more likely outcome, at least to the extent that
the migration was motivated in the first place by a sense of deprivation (or unmet aspirations)
in the country of origin.
Second, migration leading to settlement raises the question of reference groups for
comparison (Clarke et al., 2008). Two possibilities arise: first, the immigrant continues to
compare him- or herself to those who remain in the sending country and therefore
experiences satisfaction from having achieved a higher position. The other possibility is that
the reference group changes to include citizens of the destination country (Stark and Taylor,
1991).13 In the latter case – surely the more likely outcome as time passes – we need to
consider the various trajectories of the comparison, stylized in Figure 1. Relative position
may remain unchanged (paths A and B), may increase (path C) or may decrease (path D).
Only in path C will migration produce an increase in the component of happiness that comes
from comparison. This seems the most improbable outcome: immigrants need resources to
accomplish migration and often do not come from the most deprived sectors of their
societies, and it is hardly the norm for immigrants to achieve a higher economic position than
13
An additional possibility is that the reference group for migrants already includes citizens
of wealthy countries, even prior to migration. This is perhaps one of the motivating factors
for migration in the first place. However, comparisons are typically quite local (Galbraith,
1984), though perhaps less so as globalization progresses.
17
average citizens of the destination country. If migrants held a relatively low position at
home, it seems even less likely that they will achieve a relatively high position in the
destination (particularly if, being relatively poor, their educational attainment is low), and
their experience would follow path B. Immigrants do sometimes reach a relatively high
position in the destination, but those who do so seem likely to have already held a relatively
high position at home, in which case migration does not increase that relative position (Path
A). Path D describes the trajectory of immigrants who were middle-class in their “home”
country but achieve a relatively low position in the destination (because of unrecognized
qualifications, language barriers, discrimination, etc.).
It would be very surprising indeed if the experience of many migrants followed Path
C. Opportunities for upward mobility within wealthy countries (i.e., for citizens) are limited,
particularly in the US and the UK (Macleod, 1995; Hertz, 2005). No doubt there are some
immigrants who achieve a higher relative position in the destination country – but this can
hardly be the modal outcome.
Third, as discussed above, the increase in consumption of many types of goods
typically brings only a temporary increase in pleasure or satisfaction, because of the process
of adaptation (Scitovsky, 1992). Extra income generally brings lasting benefits only if spent
18
in specific ways – particularly if that spending enhances health and longevity or reduces
stress, in other words not consumption in the normal Western materialist mode (Frank,
1999). If the primary goal of migration is to acquire a bigger house and some nice consumer
goods, the process of adaptation is likely to erode the experience of satisfaction associated
with those acquisitions – just as it does for natives.
Fourth, in addition to the economic consequences of migration, we must also consider
a variety of social consequences, e.g. in relation to community, family relationships, etc., as
noted above (Layard, 2005). Wealthy countries are different from poorer countries not only
in terms of wealth but in a host of other ways. Countries like the US might be better places
to live (more conducive to happiness) than poorer countries in some ways, but perhaps they
are worse in other ways. Income and other economic factors receive a great deal of attention
in the migration literature – probably because many people assume that income is the biggest
influence on individual motivations for labor migration. But the fact that immigrants might
sometimes overlook other dimensions does not mean that scholars must follow suit.
For instance, we might ponder the fact that wealthy countries have significantly
higher rates of mental illness than poorer countries, even after accounting for differences in
resources for diagnosis (Schwartz, 2004). We might then wonder whether immigrants who
integrate more fully into a wealthy society increase the chances that they will experience a
mental illness such as depression.
Even in this regard, what matters most for immigrants is not an overall average for a
country but the trajectory of immigrants in regard to these dimensions. In other words, the
fact that the US has a higher incidence of mental illness does not by itself mean that
immigrants will themselves experience an increased incidence of mental illness after arrival.
Here (and in general) we need to avoid an ecological fallacy. To know whether immigration
benefits immigrants, it is not sufficient merely to compare the source and destination
countries in terms of averages for the various dimensions. Instead, one must gauge whether
immigrants generally experience an improvement or a deterioration on those dimensions.
The complexity of this kind of longitudinal analysis in empirical work is enormous.
But this difficulty leads us directly to the main argument of this paper: it is very difficult to
know whether immigration is on the whole beneficial to immigrants, and our confidence in
the notion that it does generally bring a positive balance of benefits is unjustified. It bears
19
emphasizing that my goal here is not to conclude that migration is in fact detrimental; instead
the point is simply that easy judgments to the effect that it is beneficial because destinations
are wealthier are not terribly helpful or robust without further analysis of the type I am
suggesting here.
It seems worth entertaining a pessimistic proposition, however – even if only as a
counterpoint to the implicit optimism of the ethical discussions reviewed earlier. A great
deal of social science has been devoted to the sustained critique of modern western societies,
which are said variously to be marked by narcissism (Lasch, 1977), individualism
(Macpherson, 1962), suppression of individuality and “true needs” (Marcuse, 1964), social
isolation (Putnam, 2000), corrosion of character (Sennett, 1998), dependency (Tanner, 2003),
lack of opportunity for mobility (Macleod, 1995), godlessness (various fundamentalist
clergy) – once we start with critiques of this sort, it quickly becomes apparent the list will be
very long indeed. Two points seem especially compelling, particularly for migration to the
US. One is the culture of long work hours, which can interfere with other goods such as
family and other close relationships (Layard, 2005). The other is the impoverished sense of
community in many wealthy societies. And while it is tempting to believe that immigrants
might recreate strong communities in ethnic enclaves in the destination country, Mahler
(1995) argues to the contrary: at least under certain conditions, some immigrants adapt
quickly to their new circumstances and tend to exploit one another, no less than natives do.
The point is that migration might bring greater income/wealth, but it might also bring
much more: wealthy societies are not only wealthy, they have a host of other characteristics,
some of which might be experienced as relatively undesirable. I do not mean to romanticize
poorer societies, which might themselves have characteristics (beyond poverty) that are
experienced by many as undesirable. In fact it would be difficult for any individual to know
enough about a large number of other countries to enable a meaningful general judgment.
But that point brings us back again to the main argument of this essay: in assuming that life is
better in a wealthy country, we assume too much, and we know very little. In particular, we
should probably conclude that we know too little about the situation of immigrants prior to
their departure (cf. Sayad, 2004). As noted above, scholars have shown more interest in how
immigrants compare to existing citizens of destination countries, while an immigrant might
care more about how his or her life has improved (or not) as a result of immigration.
20
In sum, a consideration of lessons from happiness research implies that immigration
might erode happiness for some rather than enhance it: it might increase the gap between
aspirations and achievement, it might place migrants in a lower (or at best unchanged)
relative position, and it might feed expectations about the joys of consumption that remain
unfulfilled. It might also bring negative social consequences that the migrant had perhaps
not considered, particularly if the primary motivation for migration was economic. None of
these outcomes is inevitable or universal. But surely it is unwise simply to assume that
migration makes immigrants better off.
It is sometimes asserted that immigrants are well aware that they will not achieve
economic salvation in the destination country, but that their real goal is to enable their
children to attain a more prosperous and secure life. Even for the second generation,
however, we might wonder whether life is better in a wealthy country such as the US than it
would have been in the country of their parents’ origin. Addressing this question is even
more difficult for the children than it is for the parents, because it is harder to know what sort
of life the children would have had if their parents hadn’t left (the unobserved
counterfactual). We can start with the observation that some children of immigrants do quite
well while others do poorly (i.e., segmented assimilation (Portes and Rumbaut, 1996) –
though Boyd (2002) argues that this concept does not necessarily transfer well to non-US
destinations such as Canada). But that judgment is inherently cross-sectional and does not in
itself help us to compare the actual situation of immigrant offspring with the counterfactual
situation of how they would have done given no migration. Members of wealthy societies
might find it difficult to imagine that their own children would be better off growing up in
poorer countries, but that does not necessarily mean that the children of immigrants are better
off here. Once again, the point is simply that it is difficult to know and that we probably
assume too much.
Finally, if migration doesn’t make immigrants better off, then we might ask: why
don’t they go home, and why don’t they advise their friends and relatives not to follow in
their footsteps? We can start by remembering that a significant proportion of immigrants do
return to their country of origin (while some move on to a third country). Whether return
represents success or failure is not always clear – it depends in part on one’s original
21
intentions, and it is difficult to interpret changes in intentions (Piore, 1979). But it is surely
not uncommon for some to return because they did not encounter the life they had hoped for.
Mahler (1995) describes a more insidious process. Migrants sometimes do not return
despite disappointment because they cannot face the reality of having held “false hopes” or,
what is worse, having simply “failed.” For some, the belief in America in particular as a
“promised land” is deeply held and abandoned only with great difficulty. And while an
immigrant might have no choice but to face the reality of disappointment, it can be even
more difficult to convince friends and relatives back home. The need to maintain “face” with
those at home can lead immigrants to perpetuate a myth of success, telling false stories of
accomplishments that convince others to embark on the same path.
There are grounds, suggested by Pajo, for characterizing the hopes of some
immigrants as ultimately illusory (2007; notably, the subtitle of his book refers to “Social
Demotion”). Pajo discovered that a common motivation for Albanians to move to Greece
was simply the belief that Greece is a “better” country, in “a social imaginary of the world as
a hierarchy of countries” (2007:192). Unfortunately for many of the migrants, Greece
worked out not to be better for them – a painful object lesson on the ecological fallacy. In
Albania, the frustrations that led to a decision to migrate centered on the absence of
opportunities for consumption that would allow individuals to raise (or mark) their relative
status. While consumption opportunities were indeed higher in Greece, the fact of being an
immigrant paradoxically reinforced the sameness of the migrants: “Emigrants’ sameness
among themselves, forced upon them by their being emigrants in Greece, equated the
emigrant experience to that of the Albania that they had left behind” (Pajo, 2007:199). The
problem of homogenization was reproduced on a different dimension, in a way no individual
immigrant could have predicted.
This finding dovetails with a key claim of Gilbert (2006): some of the actions we
undertake to increase our happiness simply do not work, and we systematically repeat many
of those mistakes. It is tempting to believe that the simple facts that people migrate in the
first place and then sometimes move again must mean that they are better off for having done
so. However, as noted most happiness research definitively rejects the “revealed
preferences” premise underlying that belief (e.g. Frey and Stutzer, 2000, and more generally
Sen, 1977, 1973). The implication here is that continued migration (in the sense of repeated
22
episodes and/or permanent settlement) does not by itself constitute definitive evidence of
improvement in well-being; at best, it is evidence of expectations or hopes of such
improvement.
THE CHALLENGES OF EMPIRICAL RESEARCH
This paper is limited in scope to theoretical reflection. But: how could we know, through
empirical research, whether immigration generally makes immigrants better off? In
particular, does the continuing demand for entry constitute sufficient evidence that migration
is beneficial to migrants? Or is it appropriate to invoke an outsider’s perspective in forming
a judgment?
In addressing these issues, we need to be precise about the question. The main
difficulty is that it invokes an unobservable counterfactual (indicated in the
subjunctive/conditional tense that follows): after migration, is the migrant better off than he
or she would have been given no migration? While it might be useful to compare migrants to
non-migrants in the sending country, that comparison will not answer the question directly.
Even a comparison of the migrant’s situation before and after migration is useful only if there
is some way of addressing the question of how his or her situation might have developed
given no migration.
There are also issues relating to measurement. Psychologists and others are confident
of their ability to measure happiness, and the primary means for doing so is simply to ask
respondents (with appropriately worded questions) to report their levels of happiness (Frey
and Stutzer, 2002). So it would seem that, to determine whether migration to a wealthy
country makes people better off, we simply need to ask immigrants whether they are happier
after migration, and to ask potential migrants whether they would be happier if they could
gain entry to a wealthy society.
There are at least two problems, however. In relation to the latter point (predictions):
people generally do a poor job of predicting what will make them happy (Gilbert, 2006). In
particular, Gilbert argues that there is a strong tendency to overestimate the happiness that a
course of action will bring (and to underestimate its costs and risks), even for something we
have already experienced. One specific problem is that we premise our actions on ideas
concerning what would make us happy now, but the action will only be completed later and
23
we are usually unable to predict what will make our future selves happy (Kahneman et al.,
1997; cf. Rabin, 1998). As already noted, we are simply mistaken in believing that certain
things bring us happiness, and we then engage in many actions that make us definitively less
happy. So it is by no means possible to say that a widespread desire to migrate is sufficient
to establish that it is beneficial.
More generally, as indicated above the notion that benefits can be deduced from
actions (“revealed preferences” again) simply replicates the behaviorism of the neo-classical
economic perspective. While that perspective might be useful for certain kinds of economic
questions, there is no reason to allow it to colonize other domains of social science. There
are grounds for wondering whether there is a good fit between one’s intentions, one’s
actions, and one’s judgments concerning whether the actions have led to the fulfillment of
the intentions: individuals construct coherent narratives to make sense of their lives, but
reality is not identical to those narratives (Archer, 1998). The assertion that individuals have
limited insight into their circumstances smacks of paternalism, but it is well grounded in
psychological research (Sunstein and Thaler, 2003; Gilbert, 2006). It is also a core principle
of sociology (rejected by some, to be sure) that there are deeper structures of societies that
transcend the intentions of individuals and the understandings people have about what they
do (as when a person with an annual income of $200,000 fervently believes himself to be
“middle class”).
These critical comments do little to construct a method of research that could help us
answer the question, does immigration make immigrants better off. At best, they help us to
appreciate the difficulties empirical research of this sort would bring. It hardly needs
repeating that my goal in this paper is simply to establish difficulties associated with the easy
assumption that migration is beneficial to migrants.
CONCLUSION
As demonstrated above, the assumption that migration makes immigrants better off is present
(even if only implicitly) in many discussions of the ethical dimensions of immigration
policies. Some writers believe that (potential) immigrants must be allowed to benefit from
gaining access to a wealthy country, even if the interests of existing citizens would be
harmed as a result. Others believe it is acceptable to deny those benefits to potential
24
immigrants and to allow citizens to prioritize their obligations to one another over those to
non-members. In both cases, the arguments are heavily inflected by the notion that
immigration is beneficial to immigrants. What happens to those arguments if we are no
longer so confident in this assumption?
A straightforward answer is that one way of defending less restrictive policies is
undermined to a degree. A liberal-egalitarian vision of justice might require that people
living in poor countries be allowed to seek their fortunes in wealthy countries (or,
alternatively, that a massive foreign aid/development effort be mounted) – but the analysis
here suggests that seeking one’s fortune in a wealthy country might result in disappointment.
If disappointment is indeed a common result, then this is perhaps not a terribly compelling
vision of justice.
I have attempted to phrase the point carefully. I am not claiming to be certain that
migration is harmful to immigrants, and skepticism concerning benefits on its own is by no
means sufficient to justify or necessitate adoption of a restrictive policy. There are many
reasons to be unhappy with immigration restrictions. Efforts to limit immigration can result
in public backlashes against existing immigrants. And even if immigration itself is
sometimes not beneficial to immigrants, effective enforcement of restrictions requires actions
that clearly do harm immigrants: incarceration, loss of resources invested in migration
(resulting in inability to repay debts), frustration from unfulfilled aspirations, creation of a
market for smuggling/trafficking, etc. (cf. Hayter, 2000; Johnson, 2003; Wihtol de Wenden,
2007). Restrictions are also costly for the receiving society – Martin (2003) estimates a
direct annual cost of $25-30 billion for enforcement for the world’s 25 richest countries.
There are indirect costs as well, arising from the inevitable failures of control policies and the
consequent illegality (e.g. Pécoud and de Guchteneire, 2006).
The distinction between well-being and opportunity for well-being is worth revisiting
as well. Assume that Cohen is right in formulating egalitarianism in terms of attempts to
eliminate “involuntary disadvantage” (1989). With this version of egalitarianism we might
decide to adopt an open borders immigration policy not in the (illusory) expectation that it
will lead to greater happiness but because it will remove arbitrary elements of disadvantage –
the bad luck of having been born in a poor country (and a world of closed borders). Such a
view is compelling to a degree; after all, even if some people do not achieve happiness via
25
migration, it surely counts for something that they might have the opportunity to do so. If we
were to discover (say, through empirical research) that immigrants in wealthy countries
typically do not achieve greater happiness, then our enthusiasm for endorsing their
opportunity to do so, or even for reducing their involuntary disadvantage, will perhaps be
somewhat diminished. Reflecting on our fundamental motivation for egalitarianism, we are
likely to feel some disappointment in relation to what we might have imagined was a
promising strategy. Still, such disappointment is hardly sufficient reason to abandon the
notion of removing arbitrary disadvantage, particularly when some migrants will indeed
benefit.
It might be insightful to consider likely consequences for happiness in relation to
specific policies: is migration under particular conditions likely to increase migrants’
happiness? Starting with this question, we encounter propositions that seem to run against
certain trends in wealthy countries’ immigration policies. One such trend is the increasing
preference for highly skilled migrants, on the grounds that they will offer greater benefits for
the destination country. This preference might result in (or reinforce) migration flows that
increase opportunities for those who are already relatively well off (cf. Pogge 1997; Wilcox
2009). Happiness studies finds greater subjective “payoff” from income increases for those
starting at lower incomes – thus perhaps migrants from more deprived situations would
benefit more from the opportunity to move to a wealthy country (assuming that they could in
fact thrive there). Of course, such a statement becomes relevant only if one imagines that
receiving states would be willing to alter their current practice of giving primary (or sole)
consideration to the interests of existing citizens.
The arguments presented here might therefore reinforce the claim that emphasis
should be placed on other strategies for addressing global inequalities (and involuntary
disadvantage more generally). We described above the view that development assistance is a
preferable strategy; Seglow, Bader, and others argued that unrestricted migration was
unlikely to make a significant dent in global poverty. The reason usually offered for this
view is that few of the poorest are likely to be able to move – though those few who can do
so are assumed to benefit as a result. The analysis presented here, expressing skepticism
about that assumption, suggests another reason for emphasizing development assistance:
“moving people to where the money is” might mistake the means for the end and fail to bring
26
greater happiness to those whose (lack of) well-being is motivating our concern. Even if one
believes that migration should be unrestricted, it would surely be preferable to make
migration unnecessary (cf. Carens’ suggestion, 1992, that the issue of migration is
“epiphenomenal” with respect to people’s more fundamental concerns).
Above all, it does not follow from the arguments presented here that governments in
wealthy countries can claim to protect the interests of would-be immigrants by keeping them
out – a self-serving paternalism that would inevitably be exploited by hard-core nativists. In
free societies, individuals are free to make mistakes, to engage in actions that might be bad
for them. The bar for intervention is set very high in some cases: if the certain harm that
results from smoking is not sufficient grounds for a prohibition, then surely we cannot say
that the possibility that one might fail to achieve happiness via migration is by itself
sufficient reason to prohibit it. The decision to migrate is no doubt a considered choice in
most if not all cases, and as such it falls quite some distance from the grounds for paternalist
interventions offered by liberal theorists. Kleinig (1983), for example, argues that
paternalism is justified when individuals deviate, in moments of carelessness or
impulsiveness, from major projects or central concerns; Feinberg similarly restricts
paternalism to cover only actions that are “substantially nonvoluntary” (1980:129) as against
those that are deliberately chosen. In this perspective, only ignorance of potential negative
consequences might justify paternalist migration restrictions (to the extent that ignorance
means one’s decision is not fully voluntary). Even if migrants are frequently misinformed
concerning what awaits them, however, the potential consequence being considered here –
failure to increase one’s happiness – is quite different from what discussions of paternalism
typically take as “harms” to be prevented (e.g. head injuries resulting from not wearing a
motorcycle helmet, or lung cancer resulting from smoking tobacco).
Additionally, paternalist interventions must take great care in substituting an
outsider’s conception of what is good or desirable for that of the individual in question. Even
an energetic paternalist such as Goodin, who argues that paternalism is sometimes
appropriate to secure people’s “preferred preferences” (1998), seems unlikely to conclude
that a government might legitimately prevent migration on the ground that people’s desire for
happiness trumps their desire for money: in his discussion that sort of judgment requires
some measure of evidence that people really prefer a different preference and are simply
27
incapable of acting on it. Pursuing a greater income via migration might prove to be a
mistake in the sense that it doesn’t bring more happiness, but if migrants really believe that it
will bring more happiness then a paternalistic intervention is wholly inappropriate.
Policy implications aside, a key outcome of the analysis presented here might simply
be: insight – a greater understanding of how the world works. This would be an insight
tinged with a degree of tragedy: people set out in various ways to improve their lives,
sometimes they fail, and labor migration is no more a guarantee of success (happiness) than
other life choices people sometimes make. Again, migrants might really believe that gaining
extra income in a wealthy country will improve their lives. That belief (and the association
choice/action) might – sometimes – be a mistake. There is no shortage of false beliefs about
paths to happiness: in his aptly-titled Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert reports that
having children is associated on average with lower levels of happiness, contrary to
widespread belief. (A society composed of individuals who believed otherwise might not
last long.) Still, if it is right to reject paternalism in this field, then we run up against the
view that there are limits on what government policy can accomplish in the interests of
individuals’ happiness. Inevitably there are unintended and undesirable consequences of
government action, and even if allowing labor migration facilitates a mistake for some,
others undoubtedly succeed, and some pursue migration for reasons other than the hope of
improving one’s life through extra income.
Empirical research about the relationship between migration and happiness is of
course essential for attempts to advance our understanding of these issues. One possibility
for empirical research adds a bit of complexity in comparison to what has been suggested so
far. Happiness studies typically asserts that people in general gain greater (or lesser)
happiness through a particular course of action. But there is inevitably a degree of variation
around those averages (“in general”). One particular possibility to consider in this context is
that people who choose to migrate for money are people who, despite average tendencies,
really do gain greater happiness from having more money and/or possessions. An interesting
question for future research is whether migrants are different in this regard from the origin
country population in general.
The issue of reference groups is another area particularly worthy of research. To the
extent that migrants’ reference groups shift to include people in the destination country, the
28
comparison element of income-related happiness is likely to work in their disfavor (but see
Falk and Knell 2004). If, on the other hand, migrants remain focused on their standing
relative to people in their country of origin, migration might well enhance happiness –
though of course there are a variety of other consequences of migration that will inevitably
be relevant to that outcome.
The assumption that migration is beneficial is no doubt true for some immigrants,
even beyond the categories of refugees, the desperately poor, and reunifying families.
Conditions in many countries are extremely difficult, such that migration to a wealthy
country might at least bring a degree of security. At this point, however, the notion that
migration is generally beneficial is more an assumption than an established empirical
proposition, and there are reasons to doubt it, at least for a certain proportion of immigrants
in some countries. A higher income for people in poor countries might indeed increase
happiness – but whether happiness increases with a higher income achieved via migration
might well be a very different matter.
29
REFERENCES
Aizenmen, N.C. May 14, 2006. Money Earned in U.S. Pushes Up Prices in El Salvador,
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