Fringed Life Satisfaction? A Life-Course Perspective on the Impact of International Migration on Subjective Well-Being

This chapter investigates the role of personal life events in changing levels of life satisfaction and tries to contrast migrants to native population in this respect. Marriage, divorce, separation, widowhood, and having children are considered as potential triggers for differential transformations of migrant lives as compared to non-migrant. The main assumption relies on the increased uncertainty and destandardization of migrant life course, given their spatial mobility that disrupts stages of traditional life cycle. The findings from the panel data obtained from German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP; Germany), collected during more than three decades, reveal higher sensitivity of migrants to widowhood and divorce; the differential impact of marriage depends on social interactions and the distance between marriage and migration, and there is a slight effect of becoming a parent.