International Migration, Open Borders Debates, and Happiness

REFLECTION, EVALUATION, INTEGRATION

International Migration, Open BordersDebates, and Happiness

David Bartram

University of Leicester

Arguments for ‘‘open borders’’ typically assume that migration frompoorer 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 severalgrounds 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 thenotion that increases in income contribute significantly to happiness; thisarticle extends those doubts to the notion that one can increase happi-ness by gaining more income via labor migration. Certain processes (forexample, adaptation, social comparisons) might work in counterintuitiveways for immigrants, perhaps inhibiting happiness despite ostensible eco-nomic gains. Arguments against immigration restrictions might thereforeneed to focus more on the dysfunctions of restrictions themselves and lesson 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 assumeit does; some probably think the answer is obvious and the question absurd.On its face, this assumption seems uncontroversial enough: if it wereunwarranted, why would millions continue to try to gain entry in the face ofconsiderable resistance, often taking on mind-boggling levels of debt and some-times even significant risk of injury or death? More basically, wealthy countriesare, 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 immigrantsworse off. But I argue that the assumption that migration generally makesimmigrants better off is more an article of faith than an established empiricalproposition, a likely consequence of reducing ‘‘better off’’ to its narrowest eco-nomic connotation. I then consider some consequences of this point for debateson immigration policy.

doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2486.2010.00942.x� 2010 International Studies Association

International Studies Review (2010) 12, 339–361

The focus here is on labor ⁄ economic migration, as against some other formswhere the benefits to migrants would appear to be less open to question. Inmany cases the purpose of migration is family reunification, and I am lessinclined toward a critique of the notion that families are better off when united(living in the same place). Likewise, the concept of refugee migration wouldseem to necessitate the conclusion that those who succeed in finding refugefrom persecution and danger of death are indeed better off; when the startingpoint 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 issimply to improve his or her well-being, we might wonder: is that goal usuallyachieved? I will argue that a definitive general answer to this question is probablynot possible—a significant conclusion, to the extent that it means a definitive‘‘yes’’ is not possible, contrary to a widespread belief that migration is usuallybeneficial.

This conclusion comes from consideration of recent research on happinessemerging primarily in the intersection of economics and psychology. As againstthe behaviorist premises of neo-classical economics, happiness research (or thestudy of ‘‘subjective well-being’’) works with a notion of well-being that cannotsimply 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 happinessresearch can be used to derive the implication that migration might make someimmigrants less happy than if they had stayed put. The conditions under whichthat implication is plausible are by no means general for all immigrants—butthey are perhaps common enough to temper enthusiasm for the notion thatimmigration generally improves one’s well-being.

To be interested in the connection between migration and happiness, somemight require a justification of the notion that happiness is ethically importantin general. Sumner (1996) offers a robust defense of ‘‘welfarism,’’ the claim thatwelfare (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 theorywhich fails to find a place for well-being … could possibly tell the whole storyabout the good.’’ I will argue below that migration ethicists generally assumethat migration improves immigrants’ well-being (or, at least, their opportunityfor well-being). To the extent that this argument appears unconvincing becausethis or that writer is apparently unconcerned with well-being, then followingSumner I conclude that something important is missing from the analysis. Ingeneral, however, I will claim that the assumption of benefit is at a minimumimplicit in the core questions migration ethicists ask.

In certain respects, connecting happiness research to international migrationmight simply sharpen a set of insights already present in some of the sociologicaland anthropological research on the latter. We know that many immigrants facevery difficult circumstances. Filipina domestic workers around the world, forexample, experience some pervasive ‘‘dislocations’’ (Parrenas 2001), includingfamily 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 adolescentchildren 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

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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 ofimmigration policies; this paper proposes consideration of the latter as aplausible alternative in some cases and suggests some key questions for futureresearch.

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 askswhether restrictions on immigration are justified. Often the answer one gives tothat question depends on whether one perceives that immigration is beneficialor costly for citizens of the receiving country. In most discussions of the ethics ofimmigration policies, however, the question turns on what sort of considerationto give to the migrants themselves. Arguments in this vein distinguish betweenself-interest and ethics (Isbister 1996). While many discussions of policy focus onthe interests of receiving countries, writers engaging with the question of openborders treat that focus itself as part of the question: to what extent must we alsoconsider the interests of the migrants themselves, as ‘‘outsiders’’? For someobservers, it is illegitimate for citizens of wealthy countries to preserve theiradvantages by excluding others whose poverty and deprivation result primarilyfrom the accident of birth ⁄ geography (or, in Tushnet’s (1995) formulation: the‘‘lumpy’’ distribution of resources across arbitrary borders). Alternatively, somewriters, sensitive to the challenge posed by that view, believe it is nonethelesslegitimate 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 tothe extent we are confident that migration is indeed likely to benefit those whomigrate. (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, itnonetheless seems entirely reasonable, indeed necessary, to consider welfare—-after all, the point is opportunity for welfare.) If there are significant doubts aboutthat 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, whichconfidently asserts that most migrants experience improved well-being, particu-larly in relation to income, health, and education (United Nations DevelopmentProgramme, 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 similaritiesbetween migrants’ and non-migrants’ reported happiness in destination coun-tries. The report refrains from advocating fully open borders but advocates forgreatly expanded opportunities for migration as a means of enhancing well-beingparticularly for migrants.

In some instances, this view is explicitly recognized as an assumption: ‘‘in mostcases one assumes that the benefits [to immigrants] substantially outweigh thecosts…’’ (Trebilcock 1995:221). Ruhs and Chang (2004:80) hold that ‘‘[b]yrevealed preference, the consequences of voluntary migration are likely to bepositive for most labor migrants…’’—a conclusion tempered, they say, by thelikelihood of imperfect information. In other contributions, one encountersstatements 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)

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writes that ‘‘immigrants also gain from their own migration’’ (p. 5) and refersto the ‘‘significant harm suffered by those excluded from our labor market’’(p. 16).

In a watershed article, Carens (1987:252) argued that immigration generallyought to be unrestricted—in large part because ‘‘[c]itizenship in Western liberaldemocracies … greatly enhances one’s life chances.’’1 One core liberal valueadvanced 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 culturalopportunities) migrants expect to enjoy from migration, benefits that citizens ofwealthy countries can reserve for themselves only by ignoring the position theywould adopt under the ‘‘veil of ignorance’’—a conclusion also drawn by Hudson(1986). While that phrase highlights Carens’ use of Rawls, Carens makes hisopen borders argument also on utilitarian (and Nozickean) grounds, noting thata utilitarian calculus must take account of the utility gains to migrants, not onlythe putative losses to natives. Only threats to public order (Carens 1987) or theprospect of being ‘‘submerged’’ (Dummett 2001) might legitimately limit thepoint—a threat that Dummett at least takes to be currently non-existent withrespect to existing wealthy societies.

This position, commonly described as liberal egalitarianism, emerges from twobasic principles: first, equal opportunities for all, and second, ‘‘all’’ really meansall, globally, not just the members of a particular political entity (cf. Dummett1992; Cole 2000). In this perspective, wealthy societies, confronted with globalpoverty, 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 possibleto where the money is’’ (Barry and Goodin 1992:8).2 The equivalence of thesetwo options is significant: foreign aid and freedom of movement are both takento be effective means of enabling people in poor countries to improve their lifecircumstances.3 We have a moral obligation to mitigate gross inequality, and sowe must grant freedom of movement (or, if that is politically impossible, signifi-cantly increase foreign aid budgets). Again, this argument makes sense only ifmigration actually enables migrants to improve their quality of life (assumingthat quality of life is ethically important).

To the extent that open borders arguments draw on Rawls4 (though againCarens and others also invoke other perspectives), it might be imagined thatthey are incompatible with an ostensibly utilitarian focus on happiness. Thisobjection is misplaced. In the first instance, a concern with happiness need notentail adherence to a utilitarian perspective; one can discuss ‘‘utility’’ withoutcommitting oneself to utilitarianism (in the sense of arguing that utility must bemaximized; cf. Sumner 1996; especially chapter 7), and so it must be possiblealso to discuss happiness without such a commitment.5 Moreover, contractualism

1Carens modified his views slightly in subsequent papers, acknowledging a place for consideration of culture inthinking about restrictions (for example, Carens 1992, 1999).

2cf. Pogge 1997; Kymlicka 2001; and Ugur 2007;. Pogge and Kymlicka clearly prefer redistribution over openborders. However, while open borders is described by Kymlicka (2001) as ‘‘hopelessly naıve’’ (p. 250), redistribu-tion on the proper scale is ‘‘wildly unrealistic’’ (p. 271).

3In a critique that has some parallels with this paper, some observers also doubt that foreign aid is beneficial torecipients (for example, Maren 1997).

4Rawls (1999) himself can hardly be described as a liberal egalitarian in relation to migration, particularly givenhis 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 globallevel.

5Some argue that one encounters difficulties in trying to sustain a distinction between Rawls’ arguments andutilitarianism (Goldman 1980; Narveson 1982).


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 isself-evidently a right-making characteristic, but simply because an individualcould 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 focuson opportunity for welfare (or opportunity for advantage, as Cohen (1989)would have it), the underlying motivation of egalitarianism nonetheless emergesfrom our concern for people’s well-being. The claim that happiness is a relevantform of well-being rests on the entirely sensible contention that many (thoughcertainly not all) other ‘‘goods’’ are reasonably considered instrumental, valuablein 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 ‘‘rationallife 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 onprinciple any concern with happiness (even if happiness ⁄ welfare itself is not whatis to be equalized in the liberal egalitarianism perspective).

More generally, it matters that the question is typically framed specifically inrelation 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 thedestination country being wealthier; the latter is typically where they choose togo.6 This is the type of migration that scholars write about in discussions of theethics of migration policy; migration of, say, American retirees to Costa Rica ishardly representative of the concerns addressed in this literature—a point thatCarens (1992) makes in a discussion of how the question changes whenapplied 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 implicitidea that migrants are ⁄ could be better off for having gained entry to a wealthycountry. ‘‘Better off’’ is not made explicitly equivalent to well-being or happi-ness in these writings, and there are excellent arguments holding that othervalues are independently important, irrespective of subjective consequences (forexample, Sen 1982). But to the extent that even a partial equivalence of thissort 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 goalsof this paper is to make that connection explicit in relation to migration—ina way that has not hitherto been done—so that it can be examined andevaluated.

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 thanpermitting 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 beinstructive—and returns instead to a conclusion that seems to embrace a versionof the open-borders position: until deep inequities in life chances are addressedthrough redistribution, ‘‘rich states have substantial duties to admit poor outsid-ers.’’ Others (for example, Bader 1997, 2005) dispute the notion that migration

6Migration among developing countries has been increasing in recent years, but the increase in migration towealthy countries has been even faster (Ratha and Shaw 2007).

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would be effective in alleviating global poverty; at best it would likely benefit onlya relative few. Nonetheless, even in this perspective migration is consideredindeed 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 becausethey 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 adoptpolicies 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 exclusionis self-evidently legitimate (Booth 1997); Carens (1999:1083) writes simply:‘‘Exclusion has to be justified’’ (cf. Whelan 1988). For Walzer (1983:32), thequestion arises because ‘‘[a]ffluent and free countries are, like elite 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 freedomthose countries provide. Walzer accepts that wealthy countries cannot escapeobligations to the destitute and stateless, but where those conditions do not holdhe finds grounds to permit restrictions that will prevent many from enjoyingmembership in desirable societies (cf. Miller 2005). But the point here is thatthe need to defend this position arises because of the notion that immigration isbeneficial 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 rightof a state to restrict immigration, is cognizant of ‘‘those whose position is wors-ened by the boundaries [the potential receiving state] defends….’’ And bothTamir (1995) and Tan (2004), who consider immigration restrictions a legiti-mate part of liberal nationalism, argue that such restrictions are permissible onlyto the extent that the deprivations of people in poorer countries are addressed(which means however that, given current inequalities, their positions do notreally amount to restrictionism in the sense of justifying current practices).

In some instances, the restrictionist case is mounted without a great deal ofexplicit attention to the interests of would-be migrants. But those interests arenonetheless implicit in the form of the question some authors address: is it legiti-mate to give preference to compatriots (for example, Meilaender 2001)? Thisquestion implies another clause, one that refers to the entity whose interestswould come second. That is, it asks whether it is legitimate to give priority to theinterests of existing citizens over the interests of would-be migrants. Even whenthose latter interests are not specified, they are an essential component ofthe question—and perhaps, more than that, they are the reason it is worthaddressing.

It goes too far to state that all scholars who write about ethics and immigrationpolicies believe that migration benefits immigrants. Many writers do not addressthat aspect of the question at all—perhaps assuming that anyone who wants tomigrate must have adequate reasons for doing so, such that it is not for anyoneelse to second-guess the validity of those reasons or intentions. That assumptionis surely sufficient from a libertarian point of view (Steiner 1992) and perhapsfrom 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 simplythat: a right. In an extensive analysis of liberal political philosophy and borders,where he argues that immigration controls are in fundamental contradictionwith 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 ideallycompletely 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


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 passingmention to the notion that migrants are often motivated by a desire to improvetheir economic circumstances, the overall thrust of her argument is simply thatmigration is a fundamental human right (cf. Barsky 2001).

But this is a rather empty way of looking at the question. People generallydon’t move simply because they want to move; migration—especially interna-tional migration—is usually a way of accomplishing some other goal. It thenmakes sense to ask: does migration generally enable people to accomplish thosegoals?

Economics, Psychology, and Happiness

As framed here, those goals often relate to income: essentially by definition, thecore 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 wayproduce greater happiness? This question as it relates to international migrationhas received very little attention, but a survey of happiness research more gener-ally suggests some possible answers. Some of these answers have a deep affinitywith folk wisdom: more money does not necessarily bring more happiness. AsOswald (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 moregeneral ‘‘mistake’’ made by many: believing that money is more important forhappiness than it in fact is (Gilbert 2006).

Happiness is generally defined as ‘‘subjective well-being,’’ so that surveyrespondents are free to define it in their own terms when reporting their ownhappiness levels (Easterlin 2001). Two considerations help contain the ostensibleanarchy of that definition and associated modes of measurement. First, it hasbeen 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 individualsfrom very different contexts: most people have high levels of agreement aboutthe sources of happiness, such that people’s use of the word points generally toa shared understanding of its referent (Easterlin 2001). There are differentapproaches to measurement: surveys can ask questions about life satisfaction, orabout positive affect, for example. However, I can think of no way in which thesedifferent approaches would lead to different conclusions for the question posedhere, that is, the connection between migration and happiness.

There are some key differences between this approach and ideas implicit inconventional economics. In an earlier tradition of economics, happiness was acentral concern (Kenny 1999; Frey and Stutzer 2002); utilitarian theory, in partic-ular, was premised on the notion that happiness was the ultimate goal. In thetwentieth 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 anyincome level, the choice to engage in one transaction instead of another meansthat one is in fact better off for having chosen the former (thus ordinal utility).Neo-classical economics thus rests on deeply held behaviourist assumptions

7There 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.

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(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 byincreasing one’s income.’’

Happiness research, by investigating happiness directly instead of deriving itfrom behavior, treats that implication as an empirical matter rather than an axi-omatic assumption. Evidence on the question is mixed. Wealthier people are, ata very broad level, happier than poorer people—and people in wealthy countriesare in general happier than people in poorer countries (for example, Diener2008). But that cross-sectional point exists alongside a longitudinal finding thatproves 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 Japanwere unchanged between 1958 and 1991, despite a six-fold increase in per capitaincome—a pattern found more generally for nine European countries by Oswald(1997; see also Lane 2000; but see Stevenson and Wolfers, 2008, for a discussionof 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 certainspecifications, coexists with substantial variation around the various trend lines.In particular, some countries (for example, Nigeria and Mexico) have muchhigher levels of happiness than their incomes (and other measures of develop-ment) would predict, and others (for example, Russia and Ukraine) have muchlower levels (Leigh and Wolfers 2006).

The claim that rising income does not in general bring rising happiness hasbeen challenged by a number of researchers in recent years. There is some lim-ited evidence (particularly from Eastern Europe) that demonstrates an effect ofincome in a longitudinal sense: life satisfaction in East Germany rose followingreunification, a finding Frijters, Haisken-DeNew, and Shields (2004) attribute inpart to increasing income (see also Ferrer-i-Carbonell 2005). A small percentageof changes in life satisfaction in Russia can be similarly explained by shifts inincome (though in this case the movement was downwards until 1998) (Frijters,Geishecker, Haisken-DeNew, and Shields 2006; see also Ravallion and Lokshin2002 who, while acknowledging the role of income, emphasize the large effect ofother factors). Hagerty and Veenhoven (2003) disagree with Easterlin’s earlierreading of data on the effects of changes in national income.8 And Stevensonand Wolfers (2008), in a direct assault on Easterlin’s core claim, assert that thecross-sectional country-level correlation between per-capita GDP and happiness isstronger than previously understood, particularly when the income variable islogged. All the same, the evidence for a longitudinal relationship is reasonablydescribed 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 Stevensonand Wolfers remind us) absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, thereare still grounds for skepticism concerning the notion that increases in incomegenerally bring increases in happiness—particularly if those increases in incomeare accomplished via migration.

To understand the apparent contradiction between the cross-sectional and lon-gitudinal findings (the ‘‘Easterlin paradox’’), three psychological processes areparticularly 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

8For his rebuttal, see Easterlin 2005b.9One 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.


diminishes, often rapidly (Scitovsky 1992). Adaptation applies directly to theexperience of earning a higher level of income, in particular (Easterlin 2001).

Second, happiness or satisfaction is achieved not by a ‘‘high’’ income per sebut by an income that matches our aspirations. One’s aspirations increase withone’s income, perhaps as a consequence of adaptation to earlier gains (Easterlin2001; 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). Ingeneral, people might match their aspirations to their income rather than viceversa (Van Praag and Frijters 1999). And as folk wisdom suggests, people whoemphasize 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 thedegree 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 reasonis that they can perceive themselves as being superior in status to others (asopposed 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 thanupwards (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 necessarilybring sustained increased happiness. Life circumstances in general do matter forhappiness (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 healthare in general misguided (assuming happiness as the fundamental goal). Manyindividuals do give priority to material goals, sometimes despite repeated disap-pointment, but this tendency is perhaps best described simply as a mistake—orrather 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 byincome but by a variety of non-material factors as well: family relationships, com-munity, health, meaningful employment (for its own sake, not simply forincome), 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 onlywith sacrifices in some of these other areas (a point well worth considering inrelation to migration, as we will see). Clark et al. (2008:102) refer to the pursuitof growth as an ‘‘arms race’’; ‘‘at the individual level, these kinds of status-racescan lead to suboptimal outcomes if they crowd out non-status activities,’’ forexample leisure time and family activities.

Implications of Happiness Research

As noted above, labor migration refers to the attempt to increase one’s incomevia migration (relative to what is available in the origin country). The discussionin the previous section indicates that attempts to increase income in general,

10Gilbert 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 areproductive challenge—at least to the extent that one accepts the premises of evolutionary psychology.

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even if successful, might not result in increased happiness. On the other hand,recent research suggests there might be a stronger longitudinal relationship thanhitherto appreciated between income and happiness. But that relationshipemerges from evidence relating to events ⁄ processes within countries. Can weextrapolate to the notion that migration to a wealthier country typically increaseshappiness? To assume the answer is yes is to overlook the possibility that howone gains additional income might matter for one’s happiness: perhaps getting araise 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 iffurther research resolves the Easterlin paradox by showing that it doesn’t exist(via demonstration of a hitherto unappreciated longitudinal relationship), onemight still wonder whether increasing one’s income via migration leads to greaterhappiness. This section explores some deductive implications that add up to apessimistic answer to that question.

In a conventional economic view, the benefits of migration are obvious. Giventhat labor ⁄ economic migration often (though not always) involves movementfrom poorer countries to wealthier countries, it would be implausible to imaginethat migrants do not succeed in increasing their income. Of course, there arecosts that might be harder to measure: dreadful housing conditions (the importof the lyrics from West Side Story appearing at the beginning), separation fromfamily,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 temporarymigrants, a significant proportion in some migration systems make repeated tripsover several decades (Massey, Alarcon, Durand, and Gonzalez 1987), which sug-gests that many who migrate in this mode are in no doubt themselves about thebenefits of doing so. Many of those who remain rooted in their country of origincertainly do succeed in increasing their income—as evidenced in the building oflarger houses, acquisition of imported consumer goods, investment in local busi-nesses, etc.

As discussed above, however, assessment of benefits in relation to immigrationought to dig deeper and not rest content with a putative equivalence betweenextra income and increased welfare or well-being. There are but few efforts todraw 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 similarin this respect. In a conference paper that has an affinity with the argumentspresented 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 ofthe 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 theextra income but also the trajectory of the aspirations themselves. Even in

11Research on the impact for happiness of gaining a higher income does not appear to have considered thepossibility that different ways of getting more money might matter differently for happiness. Even if it were possibleto treat the means and the end as analytically separate (thus finding a net effect of income itself), it would beimpossible 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.

12From a Washington Post story on remittances by migrants from El Salvador: ‘‘‘Last week, my husband came fora visit to see the new house, and he said to me, ‘‘My love, we are living our dream!’’’ Alvarez recounted, dabbingtears 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 oneselfand a parent or spouse whom one considers overbearing, etc. All the same, it seems reasonable to assume that ingeneral separation from family is undesired.


relation to temporary migration: a two-year spell in the United States mightmake it possible to build or purchase a larger house and to acquire some niceconsumer goods—but it might also entail exposure to a level of affluence thatleads ultimately to the feeling that one must have even more. Possibly the overallresult 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 thefirst step onto an ever-accelerating treadmill. Or one’s urge to migrate mighthave been spurred in the first instance by watching one’s neighbors return fromthe United States and proceed to build larger houses and to acquire some niceconsumer goods. In this instance migration is not a path to greater happinessthan one had before but is necessary simply to preserve or restore a pre-existinglevel. Even if one is first in one’s village to pursue this path, the benefits fromdoing so might prove temporary to some degree, if the added welfare comes inpart from an increase in relative position which is then eroded by emulation. Inboth cases the notion that migration has produced benefits acquires a degree ofambiguity.

These points might hold to an even greater extent for people who settle in awealthy country. The extra income might be sufficient to achieve purchasingpower greater than one’s income in the source country, but that purchasingpower might quickly come to seem inadequate, once one has absorbed some ofthe consumption expectations common in wealthy societies. An immigrant mightexperience a sense of gratitude for any increase in standard of living. But a senseof deprivation is also possible. The outcome—gratitude vs. deprivation—probablydepends in part on the personality or temperament of the immigrant, not onlyon 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 themore likely outcome, at least to the extent that the migration was motivated inthe first place by a sense of deprivation (or unmet aspirations) in the country oforigin.

Second, migration leading to settlement raises the question of referencegroups 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 sendingcountry and therefore experiences satisfaction from having achieved a higherposition. The other possibility is that the reference group changes to include

FIG 1. Comparison Trajectories

349David Bartram

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 varioustrajectories of the comparison, stylized in Figure 1. Relative position may remainunchanged (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 fromthe 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 evenless likely that they will achieve a relatively high position in the destination (par-ticularly if, being relatively poor, their educational attainment is low), and theirexperience would follow path B. Immigrants do sometimes reach a relativelyhigh position in the destination, but those who do so seem likely to have alreadyheld a relatively high position at home, in which case migration does notincrease that relative position (Path A). Path D describes the trajectory of immi-grants who were middle-class in their ‘‘home’’ country but achieve a relativelylow position in the destination (because of unrecognized qualifications, languagebarriers, discrimination, etc.).

It would be very surprising indeed if the experience of many migrants followedPath C. Opportunities for upward mobility within wealthy countries (that is, forcitizens) are limited, particularly in the United States and the UK (MacLeod1995; Hertz 2005). No doubt there are some immigrants who achieve a higherrelative position in the destination country—but this can hardly be the modaloutcome.

Third, as discussed above, the increase in consumption of many types of goodstypically brings only a temporary increase in pleasure or satisfaction, because ofthe process of adaptation (Scitovsky 1992). Extra income generally brings lastingbenefits only if spent in specific ways—particularly if that spending enhanceshealth and longevity or reduces stress, in other words not consumption in thenormal Western materialist mode (Frank 1999). If the primary goal of migrationis 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 thoseacquisitions—just as it does for natives.

Fourth, in addition to the economic consequences of migration, we must alsoconsider a variety of social consequences, for example, in relation to community,family relationships, etc., as noted above (Layard 2005). Wealthy countries aredifferent from poorer countries not only in terms of wealth but in a host ofother ways. Countries like the United States might be better places to live (moreconducive to happiness) than poorer countries in some ways, but perhaps theyare worse in other ways. Income and other economic factors receive a great dealof attention in the migration literature—probably because many people assumethat income is the biggest influence on individual motivations for labor migra-tion. But the fact that immigrants might sometimes overlook other dimensionsdoes 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 thenwonder whether immigrants who integrate more fully into a wealthy societyincrease the chances that they will experience a mental illness such asdepression.

13An 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.


Even in this regard, what matters most for immigrants is not an overall averagefor a country but the trajectory of immigrants in regard to these dimensions. Inother 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 anincreased incidence of mental illness after arrival. Here (and in general) weneed 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 gaugewhether immigrants generally experience an improvement or a deterioration onthose 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: itis 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 positivebalance of benefits is unjustified. It bears emphasizing that my goal here is notto conclude that migration is in fact detrimental; instead the point is simply thateasy 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 amsuggesting here.

It seems worth entertaining a pessimistic proposition, however—even if only asa 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 ofmodern 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 startwith critiques of this sort, it quickly becomes apparent the list will be very longindeed. Two points seem especially compelling, particularly for migration to theUnited States. One is the culture of long work hours, which can interfere withother goods such as family and other close relationships (Layard 2005). Theother is the impoverished sense of community in many wealthy societies. Andwhile it is tempting to believe that immigrants might recreate strong communi-ties in ethnic enclaves in the destination country, Mahler (1995) argues to thecontrary: at least under certain conditions, some immigrants adapt quicklyto their new circumstances and tend to exploit one another, no less thannatives do.

The point is that migration might bring greater income ⁄ wealth, but it mightalso bring much more: wealthy societies are not only wealthy, they have a host ofother characteristics, some of which might be experienced as relatively undesir-able. I do not mean to romanticize poorer societies, which might themselveshave characteristics (beyond poverty) that are experienced by many as undesir-able. In fact it would be difficult for any individual to know enough about alarge number of other countries to enable a meaningful general judgment. Butthat point brings us back again to the main argument of this essay: in assumingthat life is better in a wealthy country, we assume too much, and we know verylittle. In particular, we should probably conclude that we know too little aboutthe situation of immigrants prior to their departure (cf. Sayad 2004). As notedabove, scholars have shown more interest in how immigrants compare to existingcitizens of destination countries, while an immigrant might care more about howhis 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 mightincrease the gap between aspirations and achievement, it might place migrantsin a lower (or at best unchanged) relative position, and it might feed

351David Bartram

expectations about the joys of consumption that remain unfulfilled. It might alsobring negative social consequences that the migrant had perhaps not considered,particularly if the primary motivation for migration was economic. None of theseoutcomes is inevitable or universal. But surely it is unwise simply to assume thatmigration makes immigrants better off.

It is sometimes asserted that immigrants are well aware that they will notachieve economic salvation in the destination country, but that their real goal isto enable their children to attain a more prosperous and secure life. Even forthe second generation, however, we might wonder whether life is better in awealthy country such as the United States than it would have been in the countryof their parents’ origin. Addressing this question is even more difficult for thechildren than it is for the parents, because it is harder to know what sort of lifethe children would have had if their parents hadn’t left (the unobserved count-erfactual). We can start with the observation that some children of immigrantsdo quite well while others do poorly (that is, segmented assimilation (Portes andRumbaut 1996)—though Boyd (2002) argues that this concept does not neces-sarily transfer well to non-US destinations such as Canada). But that judgment isinherently cross-sectional and does not in itself help us to compare the actual sit-uation of immigrant offspring with the counterfactual situation of how theywould have done given no migration. Members of wealthy societies might find itdifficult to imagine that their own children would be better off growing up inpoorer 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 toknow 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 relativesnot to follow in their footsteps? We can start by remembering that a significantproportion of immigrants do return to their country of origin (while some moveon to a third country). Whether return represents success or failure is not alwaysclear—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 someto return because they did not encounter the life they had hoped for.

Mahler (1995) describes a more insidious process. Migrants sometimes do notreturn despite disappointment because they cannot face the reality of havingheld ‘‘false hopes’’ or, what is worse, having simply ‘‘failed.’’ For some, the beliefin America in particular as a ‘‘promised land’’ is deeply held and abandonedonly with great difficulty. And while an immigrant might have no choice but toface the reality of disappointment, it can be even more difficult to convincefriends and relatives back home. The need to maintain ‘‘face’’ with those athome can lead immigrants to perpetuate a myth of success, telling false storiesof accomplishments that convince others to embark on the same path.

There are grounds, suggested by Pajo (2007), for characterizing the hopes ofsome immigrants as ultimately illusory (notably, the subtitle of his book refers to‘‘Social Demotion’’). Pajo (2007:192) discovered that a common motivation forAlbanians 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 forthem—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 opportunitiesfor consumption that would allow individuals to raise (or mark) their relative sta-tus. While consumption opportunities were indeed higher in Greece, the fact ofbeing an immigrant paradoxically reinforced the sameness of the migrants: ‘‘Emi-grants’ sameness among themselves, forced upon them by their being emigrantsin Greece, equated the emigrant experience to that of the Albania that they hadleft behind’’ (Pajo 2007:199). The problem of homogenization was reproduced


on a different dimension, in a way no individual immigrant could havepredicted.

This finding dovetails with a key claim of Gilbert (2006): some of the actionswe 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 factsthat people migrate in the first place and then sometimes move again mustmean that they are better off for having done so. However, as noted most happi-ness research definitively rejects the ‘‘revealed preferences’’ premise underlyingthat belief (for example, Frey and Stutzer 2000; and more generally Sen 1973,1977). The implication here is that continued migration (in the sense ofrepeated episodes and ⁄ or permanent settlement) does not by itself constitutedefinitive evidence of improvement in well-being; at best, it is evidence ofexpectations 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 immigrantsbetter off? In particular, does the continuing demand for entry constitute suffi-cient evidence that migration is beneficial to migrants? Or is it appropriate toinvoke an outsider’s perspective in forming a judgment?

In addressing these issues, we need to be precise about the question. Themain difficulty is that it invokes an unobservable counterfactual (indicated inthe subjunctive ⁄ conditional tense that follows): after migration, is the migrantbetter off than he or she would have been given no migration? While it might beuseful 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’ssituation before and after migration is useful only if there is some way ofaddressing the question of how his or her situation might have developed givenno migration.

There are also issues relating to measurement. Psychologists and others areconfident of their ability to measure happiness, and the primary means for doingso is simply to ask respondents (with appropriately worded questions) to reporttheir 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 simplyneed to ask immigrants whether they are happier after migration, and to askpotential migrants whether they would be happier if they could gain entry to awealthy 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 tooverestimate the happiness that a course of action will bring (and to underesti-mate its costs and risks), even for something we have already experienced. Onespecific problem is that we premise our actions on ideas concerning what wouldmake us happy now, but the action will only be completed later and we are usuallyunable 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 certainthings bring us happiness, and we then engage in many actions that make usdefinitively less happy. So it is by no means possible to say that a widespread desireto migrate is sufficient to establish that it is beneficial.

More generally, as indicated above the notion that benefits can be deducedfrom actions (‘‘revealed preferences’’ again) simply replicates the behaviorism ofthe neo-classical economic perspective. While that perspective might be usefulfor certain kinds of economic questions, there is no reason to allow it to colonizeother domains of social science. There are grounds for wondering whether there

353David Bartram

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 notidentical to those narratives (Archer 1998). The assertion that individuals havelimited insight into their circumstances smacks of paternalism, but it is wellgrounded in psychological research (Sunstein and Thaler 2003; Gilbert 2006).It is also a core principle of sociology (rejected by some, to be sure) that thereare deeper structures of societies that transcend the intentions of individuals andthe understandings people have about what they do (as when a person with anannual income of $200,000 fervently believes himself to be ‘‘middle class’’).

These critical comments do little to construct a method of research that couldhelp us answer the question, does immigration make immigrants better off. Atbest, they help us to appreciate the difficulties empirical research of this sortwould bring. It hardly needs repeating that my goal in this paper is simply toestablish difficulties associated with the easy assumption that migration is benefi-cial to migrants.

Conclusion

As demonstrated above, the assumption that migration makes immigrants betteroff is present (even if only implicitly) in many discussions of the ethical dimen-sions of immigration policies. Some writers believe that (potential) immigrantsmust be allowed to benefit from gaining access to a wealthy country, even if theinterests of existing citizens would be harmed as a result. Others believe it isacceptable to deny those benefits to potential immigrants and to allow citizensto prioritize their obligations to one another over those to non-members. Inboth cases, the arguments are heavily inflected by the notion that immigration isbeneficial to immigrants. What happens to those arguments if we are no longerso confident in this assumption?

A straightforward answer is that one way of defending less restrictive policies isundermined to a degree. A liberal-egalitarian vision of justice might require thatpeople living in poor countries be allowed to seek their fortunes in wealthycountries (or, alternatively, that a massive foreign aid ⁄ development effort bemounted)—but the analysis here suggests that seeking one’s fortune in a wealthycountry might result in disappointment. If disappointment is indeed a commonresult, 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 certainthat migration is harmful to immigrants, and skepticism concerning benefits onits own is by no means sufficient to justify or necessitate adoption of a restrictivepolicy. 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 marketfor smuggling ⁄ trafficking, etc. (cf. Hayter 2000; Johnson 2003; Wihtol deWenden 2007). Restrictions are also costly for the receiving society—Martin(2003) estimates a direct annual cost of $25–30 billion for enforcement for theworld’s 25 richest countries. There are indirect costs as well, arising from theinevitable failures of control policies and the consequent illegality (for example,Pecoud and De Guchteneire 2006).

The distinction between well-being and opportunity for well-being is worthrevisiting 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


policy not in the (illusory) expectation that it will lead to greater happiness butbecause 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 iscompelling to a degree; after all, even if some people do not achieve happinessvia 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 ourenthusiasm for endorsing their opportunity to do so, or even for reducing theirinvoluntary disadvantage, will perhaps be somewhat diminished. Reflecting onour 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 ofremoving arbitrary disadvantage, particularly when some migrants will indeedbenefit.

It might be insightful to consider likely consequences for happiness in relationto specific policies: is migration under particular conditions likely to increasemigrants’ happiness? Starting with this question, we encounter propositions thatseem to run against certain trends in wealthy countries’ immigration policies.One such trend is the increasing preference for highly skilled migrants, on thegrounds that they will offer greater benefits for the destination country. Thispreference 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 forthose 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 statementbecomes relevant only if one imagines that receiving states would be willing toalter 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 thatemphasis should be placed on other strategies for addressing global inequalities(and involuntary disadvantage more generally). We described above the view thatdevelopment assistance is a preferable strategy; Seglow, Bader, and others arguedthat 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 likelyto be able to move—though those few who can do so are assumed to benefit asa result. The analysis presented here, expressing skepticism about that assump-tion, suggests another reason for emphasizing development assistance: ‘‘movingpeople to where the money is’’ might mistake the means for the end and fail tobring greater happiness to those whose (lack of) well-being is motivating ourconcern. Even if one believes that migration should be unrestricted, it wouldsurely be preferable to make migration unnecessary (cf. Carens’ 1992 suggestion,that the issue of migration is ‘‘epiphenomenal’’ with respect to people’s morefundamental 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 beexploited by hard-core nativists. In free societies, individuals are free to makemistakes, 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 smokingis not sufficient grounds for a prohibition, then surely we cannot say that thepossibility 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 consideredchoice in most if not all cases, and as such it falls quite some distance from thegrounds for paternalist interventions offered by liberal theorists. Kleinig (1983),

355David Bartram

for example, argues that paternalism is justified when individuals deviate, inmoments of carelessness or impulsiveness, from major projects or central con-cerns; Feinberg (1980:129) similarly restricts paternalism to cover only actionsthat are ‘‘substantially nonvoluntary’’ as against those that are deliberately cho-sen. In this perspective, only ignorance of potential negative consequences mightjustify paternalist migration restrictions (to the extent that ignorance meansone’s decision is not fully voluntary). Even if migrants are frequently misin-formed concerning what awaits them, however, the potential consequence beingconsidered here—failure to increase one’s happiness—is quite different fromwhat discussions of paternalism typically take as ‘‘harms’’ to be prevented (forexample, head injuries resulting from not wearing a motorcycle helmet, or lungcancer resulting from smoking tobacco).

In addition, paternalist interventions must take great care in substituting anoutsider’s conception of what is good or desirable for that of the individual inquestion. Even an energetic paternalist such as Goodin (1998), who argues thatpaternalism is sometimes appropriate to secure people’s ‘‘preferred prefer-ences,’’ seems unlikely to conclude that a government might legitimately preventmigration on the ground that people’s desire for happiness trumps their desirefor money: in his discussion that sort of judgment requires some measure of evi-dence that people really prefer a different preference and are simply incapableof 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 reallybelieve that it will bring more happiness then a paternalistic intervention iswholly inappropriate.

Policy implications aside, a key outcome of the analysis presented here mightsimply be: insight—a greater understanding of how the world works. This wouldbe an insight tinged with a degree of tragedy: people set out in various ways toimprove 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 aboutpaths to happiness: in his aptly-titled Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbertreports that having children is associated on average with lower levels of happi-ness, contrary to widespread belief. (A society composed of individuals whobelieved otherwise might not last long.) Still, if it is right to reject paternalism inthis 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. Inevitablythere are unintended and undesirable consequences of government action, andeven if allowing labor migration facilitates a mistake for some, others undoubt-edly succeed, and some pursue migration for reasons other than the hope ofimproving one’s life through extra income.

Empirical research about the relationship between migration and happiness isof course essential for attempts to advance our understanding of these issues.One possibility for empirical research adds a bit of complexity in comparison towhat has been suggested so far. Happiness studies typically asserts that peoplein general gain greater (or lesser) happiness through a particular course ofaction. But there is inevitably a degree of variation around those averages (‘‘ingeneral’’). One particular possibility to consider in this context is that peoplewho 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 inthis 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


destination country, the comparison element of income-related happiness islikely to work in their disfavor (but see Falk and Knell 2004). If, on the otherhand, migrants remain focused on their standing relative to people in theircountry of origin, migration might well enhance happiness—though of coursethere 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 someimmigrants, even beyond the categories of refugees, the desperately poor, andreunifying families. Conditions in many countries are extremely difficult, suchthat migration to a wealthy country might at least bring a degree of security. Atthis point, however, the notion that migration is generally beneficial is more anassumption than an established empirical proposition, and there are reasons todoubt it, at least for a certain proportion of immigrants in some countries.A higher income for people in poor countries might indeed increasehappiness—but whether happiness increases with a higher income achieved viamigration might well be a very different matter.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the following people for providing comments on earlierdrafts of this paper: Jack Barbalet, Laura Brace, Alan Cromartie, Fiona Gill,Barbara Misztal, Libby Schweber, and Jamie Warner. I am especially grateful tothe anonymous referees, whose feedback was among the best I have everreceived in a review process. The revisions to this paper were completed duringa period of study leave at the University of Leicester.

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International Migration, Open Borders Debates, and Happiness