The Price of Immigration

By Paul Collier

By capturing the lion’s share of the large productivity gain from migration, migrants repay the initial investment of the journey. But are there any continuing costs of being an immigrant in a culturally alien environment?

We can use happiness as an integrating measure of economic gains and social costs. Research finds that above a modest income threshold, increases don’t generate sustained increases in happiness, though they do have transient effects.

If you win the lottery, you feel happier. However, the warm glow fades after a few months. If we apply this to migration, for the typical migrant from a low-income country to a high-income one, the income gain is overkill.

Income increases from well below the threshold to well above it. According to the economics of happiness, the first few thousand dollars would increase happiness, but the remainder would be slack.

Above the threshold, by far the most powerful determinants of happiness appear to be social: marriage, children and friends count more than the size of a pay cheque. Migration has clear effects on these social characteristics, but they are negative.

Families are separated, and the migrant spends his life in a culturally alien environment that, day by day, may tend to make him less happy. However, happiness isn’t the only alternative to income as a measure of well-being.

From “Exodus: How Migration is Changing Our World”