Bartram2010 - International Migration, Open Borders Debate and Happiness

International Studies Review (2010) 12, 339–361
REFLECTION, EVALUATION, INTEGRATION
International Migration, Open Borders

Debates, and Happiness
David Bartram
University of Leicester
Arguments for ‘‘open borders’’ typically assume that migration from

poorer countries to wealthy countries generally makes the migrants them-
selves better off; indeed, many discussions of ethics concerning immigra-
tion policy depend heavily on this assumption. But there are several
grounds for wondering whether it is at least partly unfounded for eco-
nomic migrants (if not for refugees), particularly if ‘‘better off’’ is speci-
fied 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 happi-
ness by gaining more income via labor migration. Certain processes (for
example, adaptation, social comparisons) might work in counterintuitive
ways for immigrants, perhaps inhibiting happiness despite ostensible eco-
nomic 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.
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 some-
times even significant risk of injury or death? More basically, wealthy countries
are, almost by definition, taken to be good places to live, certainly in compari-
son 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 eco-
nomic connotation. I then consider some consequences of this point for debates
on immigration policy.
doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2486.2010.00942.x
2010 International Studies Association
340 International Migration and Happiness
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.
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 well-being’’) works with a notion of well-being that cannot
simply be inferred from observed behavior in the market. It thus enables explo-
ration of the common-sense notion that gaining more money (or possessions)
does not necessarily make one happier. By extension, we will consider the possi-
bility 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
(1980) notes, this is an extreme position, despite its superficial appeal. Fortu-
nately there is no need to embrace such a radical view; for our purposes it is suf-
ficient to accept Sumner’s (1996:195) 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.’’ 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 commu-
nity. Disruptions to family life can be particularly traumatic; some Mexican immi-
grants in the United States, wary of American culture, send their adolescent
children back to live with grandparents in Mexico, creating what Smith
(2006:237) describes as a ‘‘transnational disaster.’’ There are two relevant impli-
cations one may draw from studies in this vein. One might conclude that, how-
ever difficult the circumstances of immigrants in wealthy countries, life in their
David Bartram 341
country of origin must have been worse. The alternative possibility is that, con-
trary to hopes and expectations, migration did not result in the desired improve-
ment. 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 dis-
cussions 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 result primarily
from the accident of birth ⁄ geography (or, in Tushnet’s (1995) formulation: 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 opportu-
nities for benefiting, but the issue depends in part on the likelihood of benefit-
ing. Even for those who are mainly concerned 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 contri-
butions. It is particularly salient in a recent Human Development Report, which
confidently asserts that most migrants experience improved well-being, particu-
larly 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 discus-
sion of happiness is limited to cross-sectional comparisons finding similarities
between migrants’ and non-migrants’ reported happiness in destination coun-
tries. 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 (2004:80) hold 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 glo-
bal poverty as migrants would simply go where the jobs are. And Chang (2008)
writes that ‘‘immigrants also gain from their own migration’’ (p. 5) and refers
to the ‘‘significant harm suffered by those excluded from our labor market’’
(p. 16).
In a watershed article, Carens (1987:252) argued that immigration generally
ought to be unrestricted—in large part because ‘‘[c]itizenship in Western liberal
democracies … greatly enhances one’s life chances.’’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
(Carens 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 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 inequali-
ties, 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, signifi-
cantly 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 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 chapter 7), and so it must be possible
also to discuss happiness without such a commitment.5 Moreover, contractualism
1
Carens modified his views slightly in subsequent papers, acknowledging a place for consideration of culture in
thinking about restrictions (for example, Carens 1992, 1999).
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 (2001) as ‘‘hopelessly naı̈ve’’ (p. 250), redistribu-
tion on the proper scale is ‘‘wildly unrealistic’’ (p. 271).
3
In a critique that has some parallels with this paper, some observers also doubt that foreign aid is beneficial to
recipients (for example, Maren 1997).
4
Rawls (1999) 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; as many writers have noted (for example, Beitz 1983; Kymli-
cka 2001), Rawls’ 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’ arguments and
utilitarianism (Goldman 1980; Narveson 1982).
David Bartram 343
can hardly be said to be indifferent to human well-being. As Scanlon (1982:118–

119) notes, ‘‘Individual well-being will be morally significant, according to con-
tractualism, 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.’’
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 Raw-
ls, 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 them-
selves (those in the category relevant in this paper, labor migrants in particu-
lar) 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 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 (1992) makes in a discussion 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 coun-
tries) be permitted? The force of the question—the reason people feel com-
pelled 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 happi-
ness in these writings, and there are excellent arguments holding that other
values are independently important, irrespective of subjective consequences (for
example, 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 some-
thing 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 distri-
butional concerns. To the extent that motivations for migration are economic,
Seglow (2005:329) holds ‘‘it is better to shift resources to people, rather than
permitting people to shift themselves towards resources.’’ One reason, of particu-
lar interest here, is that we must consider ‘‘non-economic sources of well-being’’
(Seglow 2005:327) as well as resources. In the end, however, Seglow (2005:329)
does not pursue implications of that intriguing suggestion—that is, the impli-
cation 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 outsid-
ers.’’ Others (for example, Bader 1997, 2005) dispute the notion that migration
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).
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 immi-
grants to improve their lot. In other words, if we in wealthy societies are to adopt
policies that have the effect of preventing people in poorer countries from enjoy-
ing 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 (1999:1083) writes simply:
‘‘Exclusion has to be justified’’ (cf. Whelan 1988). For Walzer (1983:32), the
question arises because ‘‘[a]ffluent and free countries are, like élite universities,
besieged by applicants’’—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 pre-
vented only with good reason. Miller (2007:221) as well, in defending the right
of a state to restrict immigration, is cognizant of ‘‘those whose position is wors-
ened by the boundaries [the potential receiving state] defends….’’ And both
Tamir (1995) and Tan (2004), who consider immigration restrictions a legiti-
mate 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 legiti-
mate to give preference to compatriots (for example, 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 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 con-
cerned 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 (2000:50)
refers only in passing to the impact of such controls on the ‘‘welfare of the non-
citizens who wish to enter.’’ Consider also Sutcliffe (1998:328): ‘‘Free, and ideally
completely free, movement of people is desirable in itself because it would repre-
sent an immense expansion of freedom of people to be, live, and work where
David Bartram 345
they choose.’’ In a similar vein, Hayter (2000) argues that the freedom of move-
ment we take for granted within (most) countries should be extended to encom-
pass 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 interna-
tional 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 dif-
ferent (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 gener-
ally 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 (1997:1815) notes, ‘‘Economic performance is not intrinsically interest-
ing’’; well-being at a deeper level is. To the extent that labor migrants are moti-
vated primarily by the prospect of increased income, they might act on a more
general ‘‘mistake’’ 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 20057 for a sum-
mary). 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, that is, 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 partic-
ular, 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 intrin-
sic (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
7
There is a significant irony in using Layard for a critique of the assumption that immigration makes immi-
grants better off. He writes: ‘‘The main argument in favour of immigration is of course the gain to the migrants’’
(Layard 2005:180). However, there is no elaboration on what those benefits are.
(Layard 2005; cf. Kahneman, Wakker, and Sarin 1997). As Easterlin (2005a:30)
notes, ‘‘A major implication of this theory is that one can improve well-being by
increasing one’s income.’’
Happiness research, by investigating happiness directly instead of deriving it
from behavior, treats that implication as an empirical matter rather than an axi-
omatic 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 (for example, 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 underes-
timate of the effect of income). Moreover, the aggregate cross-sectional relation-
ship 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 (for example, Nigeria and Mexico) have much
higher levels of happiness than their incomes (and other measures of develop-
ment) would predict, and others (for example, 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 lim-
ited 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, Haisken-DeNew, and Shields (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,
Geishecker, Haisken-DeNew, and Shields 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 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 (2008:29) write that ‘‘[t]he time-
series part of our analysis is necessarily only suggestive….’’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 lon-
gitudinal findings (the ‘‘Easterlin paradox’’), three psychological processes are
particularly relevant. One is adaptation: a repeated or continued stimulus pro-
duces a diminishing response (Frederick and Loewenstein 1999). We might ini-
tially gain pleasure from a newly purchased item, but that pleasure then
8
For his rebuttal, see Easterlin 2005b.
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.
David Bartram 347
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 aspira-
tions 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 satis-
faction (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 ref-
erence group (Clark and Oswald 1996; Clark, Frijters, and Shields 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). How-
ever, at any particular income level, much depends on how one defines the rele-
vant 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 cir-
cumstances 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 circum-
stances 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 disap-
pointment, 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 schol-
arly 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, com-
munity, health, meaningful employment (for its own sake, not simply for
income), freedom, etc. (Layard 2005). That much is obvious; but a point particu-
larly 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. (2008:102) 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,’’ for
example leisure time and family activities.
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,
10
Gilbert notes that psychological traits (for example, acquisitiveness) are reproduced not because they contrib-
ute 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.
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 (for example, in the same city) has quite dif-
ferent 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, etc. Regarding an earlier era,
Handlin (1973:95) writes about the ‘‘shattering loneliness’’ and alienation expe-
rienced by immigrants in the United States. But among more recent temporary
migrants, a significant proportion in some migration systems make repeated trips
over several decades (Massey, Alarcón, Durand, and González 1987), which sug-
gests 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 busi-
nesses, 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) investi-
gate variation in life satisfaction among immigrants in Winnipeg, but their ques-
tion 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, Rossi, and Pozo (2007) ask about the impact of migra-
tion 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 account-
ing 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
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 sig-
nificant research opportunity so far overlooked.
12
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.
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.
David Bartram 349
FIG 1. Comparison Trajectories
relation to temporary migration: a two-year spell in the United States 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 United States 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
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, Suh Eunkook, Lucas,
and Smith 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 (Clark et al. 2008). Two possibilities arise: first, the immi-
grant 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 happi-
ness 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 immi-
grants to achieve a higher economic position than average citizens of the desti-
nation 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 (par-
ticularly 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 immi-
grants 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 (that is, for
citizens) are limited, particularly in the United States 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 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 adap-
tation 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, for example, 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 United States 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 migra-
tion. 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 signifi-
cantly higher rates of mental illness than poorer countries, even after account-
ing 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.
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.
David Bartram 351
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 United States has a higher incidence of mental ill-
ness 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 immi-
grants, it is not sufficient merely to compare the source and destination coun-
tries 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 enor-
mous. 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 immi-
grants, and our confidence in the notion that it does generally bring a positive
balance of benefits is unjustified. It bears 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 wealth-
ier 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 ear-
lier. 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 1979), individualism (Macpherson 1962), suppression of individuality and
‘‘true needs’’ (Marcuse 1964), social isolation (Putnam 2000), corrosion of char-
acter (Sennett 1998), dependency (Tanner 2003), lack of opportunity for mobil-
ity (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
United States. 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 communi-
ties 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 undesir-
able. I do not mean to romanticize poorer societies, which might themselves
have characteristics (beyond poverty) that are experienced by many as undesir-
able. 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.
In sum, a consideration of lessons from happiness research implies that immi-
gration 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 United States 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 count-
erfactual). We can start with the observation that some children of immigrants
do quite well while others do poorly (that is, segmented assimilation (Portes and
Rumbaut 1996)—though Boyd (2002) argues that this concept does not neces-
sarily 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 sit-
uation 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 immi-
grants 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 intentions, and it is difficult to inter-
pret 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 (2007), for characterizing the hopes of
some immigrants as ultimately illusory (notably, the subtitle of his book refers to
‘‘Social Demotion’’). Pajo (2007:192) 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.’’ Unfor-
tunately 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 frustra-
tions 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 sta-
tus. While consumption opportunities were indeed higher in Greece, the fact of
being an immigrant paradoxically reinforced the sameness of the migrants: ‘‘Emi-
grants’ 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
David Bartram 353
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 systemati-
cally 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 happi-
ness research definitively rejects the ‘‘revealed preferences’’ premise underlying
that belief (for example, Frey and Stutzer 2000; and more generally Sen 1973,
1977). The implication here is that continued migration (in the sense of
repeated 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 suffi-
cient 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 com-
parison 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 deter-
mine 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 (predic-
tions): 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 underesti-
mate 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 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 con-
cerning whether the actions have led to the fulfillment of the intentions: individ-
uals 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 benefi-
cial 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 dimen-
sions 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 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 immi-
grants. And even if immigration itself is sometimes not beneficial to immigrants,
effective enforcement of restrictions requires actions that clearly do harm immi-
grants: incarceration, loss of resources invested in migration (resulting in inabil-
ity 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 (for example,
Pécoud and De Guchteneire 2006).
The distinction between well-being and opportunity for well-being is worth
revisiting as well. Assume that Cohen (1989) is right in formulating egalitarian-
ism in terms of attempts to eliminate ‘‘involuntary disadvantage.’’ With this ver-
sion of egalitarianism we might decide to adopt an open borders immigration
David Bartram 355
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 hav-
ing 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 migration, it surely counts for something that they might have the opportu-
nity to do so. If we were to discover (say, through empirical research) that immi-
grants 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 disap-
pointment 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 opportu-
nities 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 situ-
ations 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 inter-
ests 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 pov-
erty. 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 assump-
tion, 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 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’ 1992 suggestion,
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 govern-
ments in wealthy countries can claim to protect the interests of would-be immi-
grants 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 interven-
tion 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 suffi-
cient 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 con-
cerns; Feinberg (1980:129) similarly restricts paternalism to cover only actions
that are ‘‘substantially nonvoluntary’’ as against those that are deliberately cho-
sen. 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 misin-
formed 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 (for
example, head injuries resulting from not wearing a motorcycle helmet, or lung
cancer resulting from smoking tobacco).
In addition, 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 (1998), who argues that
paternalism is sometimes appropriate to secure people’s ‘‘preferred prefer-
ences,’’ 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 evi-
dence that people really prefer a different preference and are simply incapable
of acting on it. Pursuing a greater income via migration might prove to be a mis-
take 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 guar-
antee of success (happiness) than other life choices people sometimes make.
Again, migrants might really believe that gaining extra income in a wealthy coun-
try 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 happi-
ness, 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 govern-
ment 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 undoubt-
edly 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
David Bartram 357
destination country, the 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 rele-
vant 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.
Acknowledgments
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.
References
Aizenmen, N. C. (2006) Money Earned in U.S. Pushes Up Prices in El Salvador. Washington Post,
May 14.
Archer, Margaret S. (1998) Social Theory and the Analysis of Society. In Knowing the Social World,
edited by Tim May, and Malcolm Williams. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Bader, Veit. (1997) Fairly Open Borders. In Citizenship and Exclusion, edited by Veit Bader.
Basingstoke: Macmillan Press Ltd.
Bader, Veit. (2005) The Ethics of Immigration. Constellations 12: 331–361.
Barry, Brian, and Robert E. Goodin. (1992) Free Movement: Ethical Issues in the Transnational Migra-
tion of People and of Money. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Barsky, Robert F. (2001) An Essay on the Free Movement of Peoples. Refuge 19: 84–93.
Beitz, Charles R. (1983) Cosmopolitan Ideals and National Sentiment. The Journal of Philosophy 80:
591–600.
Booth, W. J. (1997) Foreigners: Insiders, Outsiders and the Ethics of Membership. Review of Politics
59: 259–292.
Borraz, Fernando, Maximo Rossi, and Susan Pozo. (2007) And What about the Family Back
Home? International Migration and Happiness. Public Policy Development Office Conference,
Bangkok.
Boyd, Monica. (2002) Educational Attainment of Immigrant Offspring: Success or Segmented
Assimilation? International Migration Review 36: 1037–1060.
Carens, Joseph H. (1987) Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders. Review of Politics 49:
251–273.
Carens, Joseph H. (1992) Migration and Morality: A Liberal Egalitarian Perspective. In Free Move-
ment: Ethical Issues in the Transnational Migration of People and of Money, edited by Brian Barry, and
Robert E. Goodin. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Carens, Joseph H. (1999) A Reply to Meilander: Reconsidering Open Borders. International Migration
Review 33: 1082–1097.
Chang, Howard F. (2008) The Economics of International Labor Migration and the Case for Global
Distributive Justice in Liberal Political Theory. Cornell International Law Journal 41: 1–26.
Clark, Andrew E., and Andrew J. Oswald. (1996) Satisfaction and Comparison Income. Journal of
Public Economics 61: 359–381.
Clark, Andrew E., Paul Frijters, and Michael Shields. (2008) Relative Income, Happiness and
Utility: An Explanation for the Easterlin Paradox and Other Puzzles. Journal of Economic Literature
46: 95–144.
Cohen, G. A. (1989) On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice. Ethics 99: 906–944.
Cole, Phillip. (2000) Philosophies of Exclusion: Liberal Political Theory and Immigration. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press.
Diener, Ed. (2008) Myths in the Science of Happiness and Directions for Future Research. In The
Science of Subjective Well-Being, edited by Michael Eid, and Randy Larsen. New York: Guilford Pub-
lications.
Diener, Ed, M. Suh Eunkook, Richard E. Lucas, and Heidi L. Smith. (1999) Subjective Well-
Being: Three Decades of Progress. Psychological Bulletin 125: 276–303.
Dummett, Ann. (1992) The Transnational Migration of People Seen from within a Natural Law
Tradition. In Free Movement: Ethical Issues in the Transnational Migration of People and of Money, edi-
ted by Brian Barry, and Robert E. Goodin. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Dummett, Michael. (2001) On Immigration and Refugees. London: Routledge.
Easterlin, Richard A. (1974) Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? In Nations and
Households in Economic Growth: Essays in Honor of Moses Abramowitz, edited by Paul A. David, and
Melvin W. Reder. New York: Academic Press.
Easterlin, Richard A. (2001) Income and Happiness: Towards a Unified Theory. The Economic Jour-
nal 111: 465–484.
Easterlin, Richard A. (2005a) Building a Better Theory of Well-Being. In Economics And Happiness:
Framing the Analysis, edited by Luigi Bruni, and Pier Luigi Porta. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Easterlin, Richard A. (2005b) Feeding the Illusion of Growth and Happiness: A Reply to Hagerty
and Veenhoven. Social Indicators Research 74: 429–443.
Falk, Armin, and Markus Knell. (2004) Choosing the Joneses: Endogenous Goals and Reference
Standards. Scandinavian Journal of Economics 106: 417–435.
Feinberg, Joel. (1980) Rights, Justice and the Bounds of Liberty: Essays in Social Philosophy. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Ada. (2005) Income and Well-Being: An Empirical Analysis of the Comparison
Income Effect. Journal of Public Economics 89: 997–1019.
Frank, Robert H. (1999) Luxury Fever: Money and Happiness in an Era of Excess. Princeton, NJ: Prince-
ton University Press.
Frederick, Shane, and George F. Loewenstein. (1999) Hedonic Adaptation. In Well-Being: The
Foundations of Hedonic Psychology, edited by Daniel Kahneman, Ed Diener, and Norbert Schwarz.
New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Frey, Bruno S., and Alois Stutzer. (2000) Maximising Happiness? German Economic Review 1:
145–167.
Frey, Bruno S., and Alois Stutzer. (2002) Happiness and Economics: How the Economy and Institutions
Affect Human Well-Being. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Frijters, Paul, John P. Haisken-DeNew, and Michael A. Shields. (2004) Money Does Matter! Evi-
dence from Increasing Real Income and Life Satisfaction in East Germany Following Reunifica-
tion. American Economic Review 94: 730–740.
Frijters, Paul, Ingo Geishecker, John P. Haisken-DeNew, and Michael A. Shields. (2006) Can
the Large Swings in Russian Life Satisfaction Be Explained by Ups and Downs in Real Incomes?
Scandinavian Journal of Economics 108: 433–458.
Galbraith, John Kenneth. (1984) The Affluent Society. London: Penguin.
Gilbert, Daniel. (2006) Stumbling on Happiness. New York: HarperCollins.
Goldman, Holly Smith. (1980) Rawls and Utilitarianism. In John Rawls’ Theory of Social Justice: An
Introduction, edited by H. Gene Blocker, and Elizabeth H. Smith. Athens, OH: Ohio University
Press.
Goodin, Robert E. (1998) Permissible Paternalism: In Defense of the Nanny State. In The Essential
Communitarian Reader, edited by Amitai Etzioni. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Hagerty, Michael R. (2000) Social Comparisons of Income in One’s Community: Evidence from
National Surveys of Income and Happiness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78:
764–771.
Hagerty, Michael R., and Ruut Veenhoven. (2003) Wealth and Happiness Revisited – Growing
National Income does Go with Greater Happiness. Social Indicators Research 64: 1–27.
David Bartram 359
Handlin, Oscar. (1973) The Uprooted. New York: Little Brown & Company.
Harris, Nigel. (2002) Thinking the Unthinkable: The Immigration Myth Exposed. London: I.B. Tauris.
Hayter, Teresa. (2000) Open Borders: The Case against Immigration Controls. London: Pluto Press.
Hertz, Tom. (2005) Rags, Riches and Race: The Intergenerational Economic Mobility of Black and
White Families in the United States. In Unequal Chances: Family Background and Economic Success,
edited by Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis, and Melissa Osborne. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer-
sity Press.
Hudson, James L. (1986) The Philosophy of Immigration. Journal of Libertarian Studies 8: 51–62.
Isbister, John. (1996) Are Immigration Controls Ethical? Social Justice 23: 54–67.
Johnson, Kevin R. (2003) Open borders? UCLA Law Review 51: 193–265.
Kahneman, Daniel, Peter P. Wakker, and Rakesh Sarin. (1997) Back to Bentham? Explorations of
Experienced Utility. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 112: 375–405.
Kasser, Tim. (2003) The High Price of Materialism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Kenny, Charles. (1999) Does Growth Cause Happiness, or Does Happiness Cause Growth? Kyklos
52: 3–25.
Kleinig, John. (1983) Paternalism. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Kymlicka, Will. (2001) Territorial Boundaries: A Liberal Egalitarian Perspective. In Boundaries and
Justice: Diverse Ethical Perspectives, edited by David Miller, and Sohail H. Hashmi. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Lane, Robert E. (2000) The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press.
Lasch, Christopher. (1979) The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expecta-
tions. New York: Norton.
Layard, Richard. (2005) Happiness: Lessons from a New Science. New York: Penguin Press.
Leigh, Andrew, and Justin Wolfers. (2006) Happiness and the Human Development Index: Aus-
tralia Is Not a Paradox. Australian Economic Review 39: 176–184.
MacLeod, Jay. (1995) Ain’t No Makin’ It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood.
Boulder: Westview Press.
Macpherson, C. B. (1962) The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Mahler, Sarah J. (1995) American Dreaming: Immigrant Life on the Margins. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Marcuse, Herbert. (1964) One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society.
Boston: Beacon Press.
Maren, Michael. (1997) The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and International Charity.
New York: Free Press.
Martin, Philip L. (2003) Bordering on Control: Combating Irregular Migration in North America and
Europe. Geneva: International Organization for Migration.
Massey, Douglas S., Rafael Alarcón, Jorge Durand, and Humberto González. (1987) Return to
Aztlan: The Social Process of International Migration from Western Mexico. Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press.
Meilaender, Peter C. (2001) Towards a Theory of Immigration. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Miller, David. (2005) Immigration: The Case For Limits. In Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics,
edited by Andrew I. Cohen, and Christopher H. Wellman. Oxford: Blackwell.
Miller, David. (2007) National Responsibility and Global Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Narveson, Jan. (1982) Rawls and Utilitarianism. In The Limits of Utilitarianism, edited by Harlan B.
Miller, and William H. Williams. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Oswald, Andrew J. (1997) Happiness and Economic Performance. Economic Journal 107: 1815–1831.
Pajo, Erind. (2007) International Migration, Social Demotion, and Imagined Advancement: An Ethnography
of Socioglobal Mobility. New York: Springer.
Parreñas, Rhacel Salazar. (2001) Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Pécoud, Antoine, and Paul De Guchteneire. (2006) International Migration, Border Controls,
and Human Rights: Assessing the Relevance of a Right to Mobility. Journal of Borderland Studies
21: 69–86.
Piore, Michael J. (1979) Birds of Passage: Migrant Labor and Industrial Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Pogge, Thomas W. (1997) Migration and Poverty. In Citizenship and Exclusion, edited by Veit Bader.
Basingstoke: Macmillan Press Ltd.
Portes, Alejandro, and Reuven Rumbaut. (1996) Immigrant America: A Portrait. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.
Putnam, Robert D. (2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York:
Simon & Schuster.
Rabin, Matthew. (1998) Psychology and Economics. Journal of Economic Literature 36: 11–46.
Ratha, Dilip, and William Shaw. (2007) South-South Migration and Remittances. World Bank Work-
ing Paper No. 102.
Ravallion, Martin, and Michael Lokshin. (2002) Self-Rated Economic Welfare in Russia. European
Economic Review 46: 1453–1473.
Rawls, John. (1999) The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Richins, Marsha L., and Scott Dawson. (1992) A Consumer Values Orientation for Materialism and
Its Measurement: Scale Development and Validation. Journal of Consumer Research 19: 303–316.
Ruhs, Martin, and Ha-Joon Chang. (2004) The Ethics of Labor Immigration Policy. International
Organization 58: 69–102.
Sayad, Abdelmalek. (2004) The Suffering of the Immigrant, translated by David Macey. Cambridge:
Polity.
Scanlon, Thomas M. (1982) Contractualism and Utilitarianism. In Utilitarianism and Beyond, edited
by Amartya Sen, and Bernard Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schwartz, Barry. (2004) The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. New York: Ecco.
Scitovsky, Tibor. (1992) The Joyless Economy: The Psychology of Human Satisfaction. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Seglow, Jonathan. (2005) The Ethics of Immigration. Political Studies Review 3: 317–334.
Sen, Amartya. (1973) Behaviour and the Concept of Preference. Economica 40: 241–259.
Sen, Amartya. (1977) Rational Fools: A Critique of the Behavioral Foundations of Economic Theory.
Philosophy and Public Affairs 6: 317–344.
Sen, Amartya. (1980) Equality of What? In The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, edited by
S. McMurrin. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Sen, Amartya. (1982) Choice, Welfare and Measurement. Oxford: Blackwell.
Sen, Amartya. (1999) Development as Freedom. New York: Knopf.
Sennett, Richard. (1998) The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New
Capitalism. New York: W. W. Norton.
Smith, Robert Courtney. (2006) Mexican New York: Transnational Lives of New Immigrants. Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press.
Stark, Oded, and J. Edward Taylor. (1991) Migration Incentives, Migration Types: The Role of
Relative Deprivation. The Economic Journal 101: 1163–1178.
Steiner, Hillel. (1992) Liberterianism and the Transnational Migration of People. In Free Movement:
Ethical Issues in the Transnational Migration of People and of Money, edited by Brian Barry, and
Robert E. Goodin. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Stevenson, Betsy, and Wolfers, Justin. (2008) ‘‘Economic Growth and Subjective Well-Being:
Reassessing the Easterlin Paradox’’, IZA Discussion Paper 3654. Bonn: Institute for the Study of
Labor.
Stutzer, Alois. (2003) The Role of Income Aspirations in Individual Happiness. Journal of Economic
Behavior & Organization 54: 89–109.
Sumner, L. W. (1996) Welfare, Happiness and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sunstein, Cass R., and Richard H. Thaler. (2003) Libertarian Paternalism Is Not an Oxymoron.
The University of Chicago Law Review 70: 1159–1202.
Sutcliffe, Bob. (1998) Freedom to Move in the Age of Globalization. In Globalization and Progressive
Economic Policy, edited by Dean Baker, Gerald Epstein, and Robert Pollin. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Tamir, Yael. (1995) Liberal Nationalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Tan, Kok-Chor. (2004) Justice without Borders: Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism, and Patriotism. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Tanner, Michael. (2003) The Poverty of Welfare: Helping Others in Civil Society. Washington, DC: The
Cato Institute.
Trebilcock, Michael J. (1995) The Case for a Liberal Immigration Policy. In Justice in Immigration,
edited by Warren F. Schwartz. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tushnet, Mark. (1995) Immigration Policy in Liberal Political Theory. In Justice in Immigration,
edited by Warren F. Schwartz. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
David Bartram 361
Ugur, Mehmet. (2007) The Ethics, Economics and Governance of Free Movement. In Migration
without Borders: Essays on the Free Movement of People, edited by Antoine Pécoud, and Paul de
Guchteneire. Paris ⁄ New York: UNESCO Publishing ⁄ Berghahn Books.
United Nations Development Programme. (2009) Human Development Report 2009 – Overcoming
barriers: Human mobility and development. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Van Praag, Bernard M. S., and Paul Frijters (1999) The Measurement of Welfare and Well-Being:
The Leyden Approach. In Well-Being: The Foundations of Hedonic Psychology, edited by Daniel
Kahneman, Ed Diener, and Norbert Schwarz. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Vohra, N., and John Adair. (2000) Life satisfaction of Indian immigrants in Canada. Psychology and
Developing Societies 12: 109–138.
Walzer, Michael. (1983) Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality. New York: Basic Books.
Whelan, Frederick G. (1988) Citizenship and Freedom of Movement: An Open Admission Policy?
In Open Borders? Closed Societies? The Ethical and Political Issues, edited by Mark Gibney. New York:
Greenwood Press.
Wihtol de Wenden, Catherine. (2007) The Frontiers of Mobility. In Migration without Borders: Essays
on the Free Movement of People, edited by Antoine Pécoud, and Paul de Guchteneire. Paris ⁄ New
York: UNESCO Publishing ⁄ Berghahn Books.
Wilcox, Shelley. (2009) The Open Borders Debate on Immigration. Philosophy Compass 4: 813–821.
Ying, Yu-Wen. (1996) Immigration Satisfaction of Chinese Americans: An Empirical Examination.
Journal of Community Psychology 24: 3–16.

Bartram2010 - International Migration, Open Borders Debate and Happiness

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Bartram2010 - International Migration, Open Borders Debate and Happiness

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

International Studies Review (2010) 12, 339–361

REFLECTION, EVALUATION, INTEGRATION

International Migration, Open Borders

Arguments for ‘‘open borders’’ typically assume that migration from

Industry boom in America;

Does migration to wealthy countries make immigrants themselves better off?

Assumptions and Omissions in ‘‘Open Borders’’ Discussions

can hardly be said to be indifferent to human well-being. As Scanlon (1982:118–

Economics, Psychology, and Happiness

diminishes, often rapidly (Scitovsky 1992). Adaptation applies directly to the

Implications of Happiness Research

FIG 1. Comparison Trajectories

relation to temporary migration: a two-year spell in the United States might

on a different dimension, in a way no individual immigrant could have

The Challenges of Empirical Research

for example, argues that paternalism is justified when individuals deviate, in

destination country, the comparison element of income-related happiness is

You might also like