Abstract
This study’s primary purpose was to examine the hypothesis that there would be a positive association between acculturation and life satisfaction for English-speaking diaspora immigrants to Israel regardless of country of origin (after adjusting for demographic characteristics including gender, age, years in the host country, reason for immigration and family support). Informed by Bornstein’s Specificity Principle in Acculturation Science, acculturation was defined by levels of: language acquisition, having realised/met expectations, and self-identification with host country. Using a cross-sectional study design, a convenience sample of English-speaking participants was recruited through a link on a well-known English-language internet site targeting immigrants to Israel. Due to the diversity of respondents, only questionnaires completed by immigrants from the following four countries were included (n = 641): Canada (n = 40), South Africa (n = 66), the United Kingdom (n = 132) and the United States (n = 403). Life satisfaction only was linked to the acculturation variable of having a higher level of realised expectations for life after immigration and reporting good health, but not associated with the other acculturation variables of language acquisition or self-identification with host country. While having realised expectations was related to life satisfaction, the number of years in the host country and language acquisition was not. Having realistic expectations (related to greater life satisfaction) may be increased by providing prospective immigrants information on the new country’s culture while they are still in the host country and planning their immigration.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adamuti-Trache, M. (2012). Language acquisition among adult immigrants in Canada: The effect of premigration language capital. Adult Education Quarterly,63(2), 103–126. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741713612442804.
Amir, M., Ayalon, L., Varshavsky, S., & Bulygina, N. (1999). Motherland or home country: A comparative study of quality of life among Jews from the former Soviet Union who immigrated to Israel, Jews in Russia, and Israeli nonimmigrants. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology,30(6), 712–721.
Amit, K., & Bar-Lev, S. (2015). Immigrants’ sense of belonging to the host country: The role of life satisfaction, language proficiency, and religious motives. Social Indicators Research,124, 947–961. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-014-0823-3.
Amit, K., & Riss, I. (2013). The duration of migration decision-making: Moving to Israel from North America. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies,39(1), 51–67. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2013.723246.
Amit, K., & Riss, I. (2014). The subjective well-being of immigrants: Pre- and postmigration. Social Indicators Research,119, 247–264. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-013-0492-7.
Anaby, D., Jarus, T., & Zumbo, B. D. (2010). Psychometric evaluation of the Hebrew language version of the Satisfaction with Life Scale. Social Indicators Research,96(2), 267–274.
Benish-Weisman, M., & Horenczyk, G. (2010). Cultural identity and perceived success among Israeli immigrants: An emic approach. International Journal of Intercultural Relations,34(5), 516–526. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2009.11.010.
Berry, J. W. (1997). Immigration, acculturation, and adaptation. Journal of Applied Psychology,46, 5–34.
Berry, J. W. (2005). Acculturation: Living successfully in two cultures. International Journal of Intercultural Relations,29(2005), 697–712. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2005.07.013.
Berry, J. W., Phinney, J. S., Sam, D. L., & Vedder, P. (2006). Immigrant youth: Acculturation, identity, and adaptation. Applied Psychology: An International Review,55(3), 303–332.
Berry, J. W., & Sabatier, C. (2011). Variations in the assessment of acculturation attitudes: Their relationships with psychological wellbeing. International Journal of Intercultural Relations,35, 658–669. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2011.02.002.
Bornstein, M. H. (2017). The specificity principle in acculturation science. Perspectives on Psychological Science,12(1), 3–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616655997.
Boski, P. (2013). A psychology of economic migration. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology,44(7), 1067–1093. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022112471895.
Bourhis, R. Y., Moise, L. C., Perreault, S., & Senecal, S. (1997). Towards an interactive acculturation model: A social psychological approach. International Journal of Psychology,32(6), 369–386. https://doi.org/10.1080/002075997400629.
Brubaker, R. (2009). Ethnicity, race, and nationalism. Annual Review of Sociology,35(2009), 21–42. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-070308-l15916.
Brzoska, P., Ellert, U., Kimil, A., Razum, O., Sass, A.-C., Salman, R., et al. (2015). Reviewing the topic of migration and health as a new national health target for Germany. International Journal of Public Health,60, 13–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-014-0617-z.
Calvo, R., Carr, D. C., & Matz-Costa, C. (2017). Another paradox? The life satisfaction of older Hispanic immigrants in the United States. Journal of Aging and Health,29(1), 3–24. https://doi.org/10.1177/0898264315624901.
CBS-Central Bureau of Statistics-Israel. (2016). 4.4 Immigrants(1), by period of immigration, country of birth and last country of residence. http://www.cbs.gov.il/shnaton67/st04_04.pdf. Accessed 11 February 2017.
Cohen, Y., & Kogan, I. (2007). Next year in Jerusalem… or in Cologne? Labour market integration of Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union in Israel and Germany in the 1990s. European Sociological Review,23(2), 155–168. https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcl026.
Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment,49(1), 71–75.
Diener, E., Inglehart, R., & Tay, L. (2013). Theory and validity of life satisfaction scales. Social Indicators Research,112(3), 497–527. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-012-0076-y.
Diener, E., Ng, W., Harter, J., & Arora, R. (2010). Wealth and happiness across the world: Material prosperity predicts life evaluation, whereas psychosocial prosperity predicts positive feeling. Journal of Happiness Studies,99(1), 52–61. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018066.
Dijkers, M. P. (1999). Correlates of life satisfaction among persons with spinal cord injury. Archives of Physical Medicine Rehabilitation,80, 867–876.
Eksi, O., & Kaya, N. (2017). Life satisfaction and keeping up with other countries. Journal of Happiness Studies,18, 199–228. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-016-9724-2.
Fichman, M., & Cummings, J. M. (2003). Multiple imputation for missing data: Making the most of what you know. Organizational Research Methods,6(3), 282–308.
Frank, K., Hou, F., & Schellenberg, G. (2016). Life satisfaction among recent immigrants in Canada: Comparisons to source-country and host-country populations. Journal of Happiness Studies,17, 1659–1680. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-015-9664-2.
Gamlen, A. (2008). The emigration state and the modern geopolitical imagination. Political Geography,27, 840–856. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2008.10.004.
Goldner, S. C., Eckstein, Z., & Weiss, Y. (2015). Chapter 2. The immigration from the former Soviet Union to Israel. In C. Dustmann (Ed.), Economic change. Migration: Economic change, social challenge (pp. 10–32). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hajdu, G., & Hajdu, T. (2016). The impact of culture on well-being: Evidence from a natural experiment. Journal of Happiness Studies,17(3), 1089–1110. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-015-9633-9.
Helliwell, J. F., Layard, R., & Sachs, J. D. (2018). World happiness report. https://s3.amazonaws.com/happiness-report/2018/WHR_web.pdf. Accessed 2 November 2018.
Iarmolenko, S., Titzmann, P. F., & Silbereisen, R. K. (2016). Bonds to the homeland: Patterns and determinants of women’s transnational travel frequency among three immigrant groups in Germany. International Journal of Psychology,51(2), 130–138. https://doi.org/10.1002/ijop.12141.
Inguglia, C., & Musso, P. (2015). Intercultural profiles and adaptation among immigrant and autochthonous adolescents. Europe’s Journal of Psychology,11(1), 79. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v11i1.872.
Katz, R. (2009). Intergenerational family relations and life satisfaction among three elderly population groups in transition in the Israeli multi-cultural society. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology,24, 77–91. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-009-9092-z.
Khvorostianov, N., & Remennick, L. (2015). Immigration and generational solidarity: Elderly Soviet immigrants and their adult children in Israel. Journal of Intergenerational Relationships,13(1), 34–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/15350770.2015.992758.
Kunst, J. R., Sadeghi, T., Tahir, H., Sam, D., & Thomsen, L. (2016). The vicious circle of religious prejudice: Islamophobia makes the acculturation attitudes of majority and minority members clash. European Journal of Social Psychology,46(2), 249–259. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2174.
Lin, L.-P., Wu, T.-Y., & Lin, J.-D. (2015). Comparison of job burnout and life satisfaction between native and foreign female direct care workers in disability institutions. Work,52, 803–809. https://doi.org/10.3233/WOR-152117.
Lissitsa, S., & Peres, Y. (2011). Criteria of sociocultural adjustment: The case of the Russian Community in Israel since 1989. International Journal of Intercultural Relations,35(2), 205–212. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2010.09.002.
Lowenstein, A., & Katz, R. (2005). Living arrangements, family solidarity and life satisfaction of two generations of immigrants in Israel. Ageing & Society,25(5), 749–767. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X04002892.
Mahonen, T. A., Leinonen, E., & Jasinskaja-Lahti, I. (2013). Met expectations and the wellbeing of diaspora immigrants: A longitudinal study. International Journal of Psychology,48(3), 324–333. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207594.2012.662278.
Marian, V., Blumenfeld, H. K., & Kaushanskaya, M. (2007). The language experience and proficiency questionnaire (LEAP-Q) assessing language profiles in bilinguals and multilinguals. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research,50, 940–967.
Motti-Stefanidi, F., Pavlopoulos, V., Obradovic, J., & Masten, A. S. (2008). Acculturation and adaptation of immigrant adolescents in Greek urban schools. International Journal of Psychology,43(1), 45–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207590701804412.
Navas, M., Rojas, A. J., García, M., & Pumares, P. (2007). Acculturation strategies and attitudes according to the Relative Acculturation Extended Model (RAEM): The perspectives of natives versus immigrants. International Journal of Intercultural Relations,31(1), 67–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2006.08.002.
Negy, C., Schwartz, S., & Reig-Ferrer, A. (2009). Violated expectations and acculturative stress among U.S. Hispanic Immigrants. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology,15(3), 255–264. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015109.
Oppenheim-Weller, S., & Kurman, J. (2017). Value fulfillment and bicultural identity integration. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology,48(3), 267–286. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022116684207.
Ponizovsky, Y., Dimitrova, R., Schachner, M. K., & van de Schoot, R. (2013). Developmetrics the satisfaction with life scale: Measurement invariance across immigrant groups. European Journal of Developmental Psychology,10(4), 526–532. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2012.707778.
Raijman, R., Semyonov, M., & Geffen, R. (2015). Language proficiency among post-1990 immigrants in Israel. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies,41(8), 1347–1371. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2014.982523.
Remennick, L. (2002). Transnational community in the making: Russian-Jewish immigrants of the 1990s in Israel. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies,28(3), 515–530. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691830220146581.
Schafer, J. L., & Olsen, M. K. (1998). Multiple imputation for multivariate missing-data problems: A data analyst’s perspective. Multivariate Behavioral Research,33(4), 545–571. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327906mbr3304_5.
Simich, L., Hamilton, H., & Baya, B. K. (2006). Mental distress, economic hardship and expectations of life in Canada among Sudanese newcomers. Transcultural Psychiatry,43(3), 418–444. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363461506066985.
Stoessel, K., Titzmann, P. F., & Silbereisen, R. K. (2014). Being “Them” and “Us” at the same time? Subgroups of cultural identification change among adolescent diaspora immigrants. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology,45(7), 1089–1109. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022114534770.
Tartakovsky, E. (2011). Premigration ethnic and national identities: Jewish adolescents planning emigration from Russia and Ukraine to Israel. International Journal of Psychology,46(5), 386–399. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207594.2011.557434.
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs—Population Division. (2016). World youth report on youth civic engagement. https://www.un.org/development/desa/publications/world-youth-report-on-youth-civic-engagement.html. Accessed 15 June 2017.
Vela, J. C., & Lerma, E. (2017). Evaluation of the life satisfaction and subjective happiness scales with Mexican American high school and college students. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences,39(1), 34–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739986316681298.
Vinokurov, A., & Trickett, E. J. (2015). Ethnic clusters in public housing and independent living of elderly immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology,30, 353–376. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-015-9271-z.
Ward, C., & Geeraert, N. (2016). Advancing acculturation theory and research: The acculturation process in its ecological context. Current Opinion in Psychology,8, 98–104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.09.021.
World Bank. (2016). WV.1 world development indicators: Size of the economy. http://wdi.worldbank.org/table/WV.1. Accessed 3 March 2018.
Yuan, Y. C. (2011). Multiple imputation using SAS software. Journal of Statistical Software,45(6), 1–25.
Zhan, H. J., Wang, Q., Fawcett, Z., Li, X., & Fan, X. (2017). Finding a sense of home across the Pacific in old age—Chinese American senior’s report of life satisfaction in a foreign land. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology,32, 31–55. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-016-9304-2.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zlotnick, C., Dryjanska, L. & Suckerman, S. The Association Between Acculturation Variables and Life Satisfaction Among Israeli Immigrants from Four English-Speaking Countries. J Happiness Stud 21, 1427–1444 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-019-00137-3
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-019-00137-3