This year in the World Happiness Report UN highlighted the impact of migration onto the nation’s happiness and concluded that the migrant’s happiness depends on the quality of life in the new country.
Seems an easy formula to grasp but what influences this quality of life for migrants?
Unlike people who were born and stayed in the same country, the newcomers feel the need to be accepted by the new society.
An international analytical agency Gallup World Poll looked at those acceptance levels in different countries and their results formed the basis for the UN report.
How do you define acceptance
One of the authors of the report, Regional Research director Neli Esipova explains the methodology:
To form the Migrant Acceptance Index people had to respond to 3 questions by saying whether it is a good or a bad thing if:
1- Immigrants living in this country
2- An immigrant becoming your neighbor
3 - An immigrant marrying one of your close relatives
«Local» - «Foreign»
Some of the results identified after the survey were less surprising than the others. Across 140 countries the less accepting are in Eastern European states - Macedonia, Hungary, and Serbia, while Iceland, New Zealand, Rwanda and Sierra Leone throw their doors open to the newly arrived.
As Neli explains, the low index of the Eastern European bloc is attributed to the large stream of the Syrian refugees that went along the Eastern Europe on their way from Greece to Germany and heated up nationalistic moods and negative attitudes.
Recent re-election of a eurosceptic Viktor Orban as the prime minister of Hungary who vows to stop migration in Hungary, confirms Ms Esipova’s suggestions.
Gallup World Poll Source: Gallup World Poll
Australia is open to migrants
On the opposite from Macedonia side there is Australia which is the 6th the most accepting country in the world.
As Neli believes it shows good quality of the migration policy, correctly steered migrant services and the history of migration.
On the scale from 0 to 9 Australia scored 7,98.
Подробнее об австралийском счастье
Австралия - в десятке самых счастливых стран мира
African phenomena
The most unexpected for the researchers was to see so many African countries in the top ten.
Five out of 10 most accepting countries are located on the African continent.
However, the explanation to this high level of acceptance was found.
Neli says that the African people don’t treat migrants as competitors for their jobs but instead as investors.
Therefore in Africa migrant don’t feel this top-down approach that undermines self confidence and builds up a social wall between local and migrant people.
How does it all translate?
Going back to the wishes of happiness in the migrant realm, many would agree that the euphoria once felt from moving into new country fades away after two years, however, as Nali says, this decline varies in countries with high level of acceptance to those that are at the bottom of the list.
“Once a migrant arrives to a country, the level of happiness is higher than among local people. Five years down the track, in the countries where accepting index is low, this level of happiness falls below the the level among local people. This doesn’t happen in the countries that are open to migrants”.
Source: UN
One of the positive conclusions of this international research is the acceptance across the young people.
According to Ms Esipova, the young people are universally accepting and open to migrants which gives hope that in future when they come to the governing positions, we will see a more global and open society.
