Contained in:
Book Chapter

Life satisfaction of refugees living in Germany

  • Daria Mendola
  • Anna Maria Parroco

Since 2015, Germany has been hosting noticeable incoming flows of refugees and asylum seekers, leading, in 2020, the ranking of European countries and being the fifth in the world ranking for the number of hosted refugees. Despite the quality of life of refugees is expected to be improved in the aftermath of their arrival to Germany, refugees are still facing several problems of integration and economic deprivation (e.g., about 90% are unemployed). Hence, it is a worthwhile exercise to study how satisfied they are with their present life. Using a sample of 3,408 individuals from the German IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees (regarding refugees and asylum seekers who came to the country between January 2013 and January 2016), we present some preliminary analyses on the life satisfaction (LS) of these vulnerable individuals. Particularly, satisfaction levels were arranged by quartile and an ordinal regression model was estimated to focus on the association among levels of LS and main socio-demographic characteristics. Syrians experience worst perceived quality of life (LS), such as older and higher educated people, other things being equal. Uncertainty, due to their legal status or to lesser support received by law, may explain that those with dismissed or pending asylum application are less satisfied than refugees. Family arrangements, as expected, has an impact, other things being equal, on the overall life satisfaction: the higher the number of co-residing household members the higher the LS; cohabiting partner of spouse affect positively LS. Noticeably, LS is positively associated with satisfaction in specific domains such as health, privacy in the current living arrangement, and neighbourhood safety. Interesting insights come out for policy design.

  • Keywords:
  • Well-being,
  • quality of life,
  • asylum seekers,
  • IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey,
  • of Refugees,
+ Show More

Daria Mendola

University of Palermo, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0001-5723-7859

Anna Maria Parroco

University of Palermo, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0003-3213-7805

  1. Amint, K., (2010). Determinants of Life Satisfaction Among Immigrants from Western Countries and from the FSU in Israel, Social Indicators Research, 96, pp. 515–534.
  2. Belau, M. (2019). The impact of the housing situation on the health-related quality of life of refugees located in North Rhine-Westfalia, Germany. European Journal of Public Health, 29(Supplement_4), ckz185-175.
  3. Berry, J.W. (2017). Theories and Models of Acculturation, The Oxford Handbook of Acculturation and Health, Edited by Seth J. Schwartz and Jennifer Unger. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190215217.013.2
  4. Brücker, H., Rother, N., Schupp, J. (2016). IAB-BAMF-SOEP-Befragung von Geflüchteten: Überblick und erste Ergebnisse (Vol. 29, p. 77). DEU.
  5. Busetta, A., Mendola, D. (2018). The effect of family networks on refugees health conditions. In: Giornate di Studio sulla Popolazione 2019, January 24-26, 2019 – Milan, Italy.
  6. Colic-Peisker, V. (2009). Visibility, settlement success and life satisfaction in three refugee communities in Australia. Ethnicities, 9(2), pp. 175-199.
  7. Cummins, R.A. (2000). Objective and Subjective Quality of Life: An Interactive Model. Social Indicators Research, 52, pp. 55–72.
  8. Gambaro, L., Kreyenfeld, M., Schacht, D., Spieß, C. K. (2018). Refugees in Germany with children still living abroad have lowest life satisfaction. DIW Weekly Report, 8(42), pp. 415-425.
  9. Georgiadou, E., Zbidat, A., Schmitt, G. M., Erim, Y. (2018). Prevalence of mental distress among Syrian refugees with residence permission in Germany: a registry-based study. Frontiers in psychiatry, 9, 393, pp. 1-12.
  10. Hendriks, M. (2015). The happiness of international migrants: A review of research findings. Migration Studies, 3(3), pp. 343–369.
  11. Hinger, S. (2016). Asylum in Germany: The making of the ‘crisis’ and the role of civil society. Human Geography, 9(2), pp. 78-88.
  12. Kogan, I., Shen, J., Siegert, M. (2018). What makes a satisfied immigrant? Host-country characteristics and immigrants’ life satisfaction in eighteen European countries. Journal of Happiness Studies, 19(6), pp. 1783-1809.
  13. Leiler, A., Bjärtå, A., Ekdahl, J., Wasteson, E. (2019). Mental health and quality of life among asylum seekers and refugees living in refugee housing facilities in Sweden. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 54(5), pp. 543-551.
  14. Nesterko, Y., Braehler, E., Grande, G., Glaesmer, H. (2013). Life satisfaction and health-related quality of life in immigrants and native-born Germans: the role of immigration-related factors. Quality of Life Research, 22(5), pp. 1005-1013.
  15. Phillips, D. (2006). Moving towards integration: the housing of asylum seekers and refugees in Britain. Housing Studies, 21(4), pp. 539-553.
  16. Walther, L., Fuchs, L. M., Schupp, J., von Scheve, C. (2020). Living Conditions and the Mental Health and Well-being of Refugees: Evidence from a Large-Scale German Survey. Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, pp. 1-11.
  17. Schiele, M. (2020). Life satisfaction and return migration: analysing the role of life satisfaction for migrant return intentions in Germany. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, pp. 1-20.
  18. UNHCR (2021). Refugee data finder. Available at: https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics (01/21).
PDF
  • Publication Year: 2021
  • Pages: 97-102
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2021 Author(s)

XML
  • Publication Year: 2021
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2021 Author(s)

Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Life satisfaction of refugees living in Germany

Authors

Daria Mendola, Anna Maria Parroco

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-304-8.20

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2021

Copyright Information

© 2021 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

ASA 2021 Statistics and Information Systems for Policy Evaluation

Book Subtitle

Book of short papers of the opening conference

Editors

Bruno Bertaccini, Luigi Fabbris, Alessandra Petrucci

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2021

Copyright Information

© 2021 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-304-8

eISBN (pdf)

978-88-5518-304-8

eISBN (xml)

978-88-5518-305-5

Series Title

Proceedings e report

Series ISSN

2704-601X

Series E-ISSN

2704-5846

388

Fulltext
downloads

293

Views

Export Citation

1,346

Open Access Books

in the Catalogue

2,262

Book Chapters

3,790,127

Fulltext
downloads

4,420

Authors

from 923 Research Institutions

of 65 Nations

65

scientific boards

from 348 Research Institutions

of 43 Nations

1,248

Referees

from 381 Research Institutions

of 38 Nations