The Role of Religion in Migrants’ Happiness

Migrants experience different levels of happiness depending on the migration stream they follow. This study seeks to understand the role of religion in such differences by focusing on the religious linkages between the host country religious cultures on one hand and home country religious cultures and the migrant’s religion on the other hand. The analysis uses a combination of historic and current dominant religions as well as the incidence of those religions in both (home and host) countries to understand how the religious linkages affect immigrants’ happiness in Europe. The results suggest that immigrants’ happiness is not higher when the immigrants’ personal religion matches with the host country’s current dominant religion. Nevertheless, immigrants’ happiness is slightly higher when there is a strong historic religious linkage between the host and home countries. Finally, when the religious linkages between countries are based on current religions such a relationship is not as significant compared to the historical one.