The Effect of (Internal) Migration on Happiness

Internal Migration is usually related with the improvement of a certain objective component like labor-market outcome and income, but the relationship with a person’s happiness remains unclear. Is migration associated with any significant change in happiness and does this depend on different motives to migrate? In order to find answers on those questions I used data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) which follows a sample of people over a time period between 1996 and 2008. Migration is defined as a change of residence address between two waves. By comparing migrants to non-migrants I found that internal migration has a positive effect on someone’s happiness. This effect seems to be different for different reasons to migrate. Although there is no statistical evidence to conclude work-migrants are happier than non-work migrants, there appears to be a significant difference among non-employment migrations. Different reasons for non-employment migrations may affect happiness differently. In addition, long-distance migrants are generally happier than short-distance migrants.