Anticipation of Life Satisfaction Before Emigration: Evidence from German Panel Data
Sociological as well as economic research stresses the impact of so called 'push and pull factors' on individual migration decisions. These push and pull factors are often understood as a combination of individual socio economic and socio demographic determinants and institutional contexts in home and (possible) destination countries. However, within this framework there is only little research on the correlation between life satisfaction and individual migration processes up to now. The paper provides an analysis that aims on investigating the development of individual life satisfaction before emigration from a highly industrialized country under a life course perspective by using longitudinal data from the German Socio Economic Panel (SOEP) The estimated fixed effects models show a significant decrease of life satisfaction between three to two years before the final emigration event. This overall pattern can also be observed in almost all analyzed subgroups.