Life Satisfaction and Perceived Health: How Individual Characteristics and Policies Influence Immigrants’ Well-Being in Italy

Elena Ambrosetti, University La Sapienza
Angela Paparusso , Institute of Research on Population and Social Policies (CNR-IRPPS)

The increased number of migrants residing in Italy has led to a growing number of studies on international migration, in topic such as immigrants’ integration, the demographic behavior of immigrants, immigration policies, the surge of refugees and undocumented immigrants, attitudes towards migrants, etc. However, to our best knowledge, there is a lack of quantitative studies addressing immigrants’ well-being. Therefore, this study has two main aims: 1) to assess the determinants of well-being among immigrants in Italy; 2) to assess the effect of immigration policies on the well-being of immigrants in the context of the Southern European model of immigration. Data stem from the survey on “Social Condition and Integration of Foreign Citizens”, ISTAT, 2011-2012. Our dataset includes 15,767 foreign citizens aged 14 years and over. We selected two indicators of subjective well-being: self-reported life satisfaction and perceived health and we performed two ordered logistic regression models separately.

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 Presented in Session 7. Migration & Urbanization