Thursday, October 29, 2009

Immigrant unhappiness--again


In a recent post on unhappiness on immigration, I was told that I should have assessed how happy immigrants would have been if they had remained in their home countries (and that I lied because I didn't do that). I guess since I'm religious, readers assume I have access to God or something because He's probably the only one that can answer that question.

Bound as I am to the mortal sphere, I put together a table that lists the numbers from the earlier post in the left column, and the percent of those in the home country who are "not very happy," or "not all all happy" (as opposed to very or quite happy). These data are from the World Values Survey.  You can see that some countries were not asked the question that their counterparts in America were asked.

In 7 of the 11 eleven countries, a higher percentage of immigrants are unhappy than folks back home. In only 4 of 11 countries are people happier here.

Of course, these immigrants might actually have been more miserable had they remained home, so let's get it out there that I'm a liar in this post too.

2 comments:

  1. Those who are chronically dissatisfied may move from place to place thinking that will make them happy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Those who are chronically dissatisfied may move from place to place thinking that will make them happy.

    ReplyDelete

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