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Income Aspiration, Income Comparison and Life Satisfaction: The case of Turkish Migrants in the Netherlands

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Abstract

This study examines the effects of income aspiration and social and economic comparison (with a wide range of reference groups) on the life satisfaction of Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands by using a new and a more direct approach. This is made possible with a unique data set applied to a representative sample of 1006 respondents that includes individual data on reported satisfaction with life, as well as a sufficient income evaluation measure as a proxy for individuals’ aspiration levels. The proxy measure for social and economic comparison is the evaluation of socioeconomic status on the ladder. Respondents not only assess their socio-economic position on the ladder, but also evaluate the reference groups’ position as well. The results reveal that life satisfaction of respondents’ is negatively correlated with their income aspiration level, controlling for the effect of income and other socio-demographic and socio-economic variables. The estimates for the dummy specifications reveal that the perception of a worse living standard than Dutch natives is significantly and negatively correlated with the life satisfaction of Turkish immigrants. Furthermore, the high coefficient for comparison with people in Turkey indicates that the reference groups in the country of origin do not lose their importance and effect. For life domain reference groups, both upward and downward evaluations are statistically significant.

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Notes

  1. A detailed overview of experimental and longitudinal studies that address migrants’ increase in happiness levels is represented in Hendriks (2015).

  2. In terms of life satisfaction of non-western immigrants in the Netherlands, although the number of studies is quite limited, researchers have found relatively low life satisfaction among ethnic minority groups (CBS 2005; Cornelisse-Vermaat 2005; FORUM 2008; Verkuyten 1986, 2008). It was found that the general life satisfaction of immigrants was substantially lower than that of the native Dutch.

  3. For information and data on collectivism please see: https://www.hofstede-insights.com.

  4. For a detailed discussion on relative income and happiness among individualistic and collectivistic societies see: Dumludag, Gokdemir and Vendrik (2015).

  5. (See Fredrick and Loewenstein, 1999, Diener, Lucas, and Scollon, 2009, for a review).

  6. At the time of the field study 320.000 Turkish immigrants (82 percent of the total population of Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands) from various regions in the Netherlands were registered at the Turkish Consulate in Rotterdam.

  7. The names of 148 people were selected from a wide pool based on information from municipality records, a non-governmental organizations database, databases of social networks, etc.

  8. The interviews lasted approximately 30 min, and there was no show-up fee paid. The non-response rate of respondents is 20% (of which 10% refusals).

  9. The cross section nature of the data hinders to use of probit-OLS approach. In addition, small sample size, even it would be a panel, may be not sufficient to meet the criteria of the fixed effects estimations due to loss of hundreds of observations.

  10. According to the individualism-collectivism measure of Hofstede (1984) Turkey, with a score of 37 is a collectivistic society. This means that the ‘‘We’’ is important, people belong to in-groups (families, clans or organizations) who look after each other in exchange for loyalty. The findings of the researches studying the impact of income comparison on happiness in Turkey are in parallel with the findings in the literature and in this specific research. For detailed information please see: Dumludag (2013), Caner (2015), Dumludag, Gokdemir and Giray (2016).

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK – no: 2219) and the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) for their financial support of the research project for this paper, and the Foreign Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, the Turkish Consulate at Rotterdam, the AE1 section of the School of Business and Organization (SBE) at Maastricht University, the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) , the Istanbul University Scientific Research Project Department (BAP), Ineke Bijlsma, and HardZout for their valuable support. We are also grateful to Martin Carree, Richard Easterlin, John de Figueiredo, Andries de Grip, Erzo Luttmer, Olivier Marie, Hilda Mertens, Raymond Montizaan, Andrew Oswald, Barkley Rosser, Ruut Veenhoven and Maarten Vendrik for their valuable comments.

Funding

The study was supported by grant 2219 from the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) and Higher Council of Education (YOK). This work was carried out collaboration with Maastricht University (Host Institution), Foreign Ministry of Turkey and Turkish Consulate at Rotterdam. Science Foundation of the Netherlands (NWO) contributed to the project by providing special fund for screening a documentary of the project since the project was selected one of the five projects to be funded (BESSENSAP).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Devrim Dumludag

  2. Department of Economics, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Ozge Gokdemir

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  1. Devrim Dumludag
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Correspondence to Devrim Dumludag.

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Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. However, the first paper of the project includes Maarten Vendrik as one of the authors, since his contribution with his methodological expertise was very crucial for the paper. We would like to inform you that, as a potential referee candidate, his selection could lead a bias effect.

Ethical Approval

The field survey of the project “Life Satisfaction of Turkish Immigrants in the Netherlands” applied in Rotterdam Consulate of Turkish Republic. The hosting institution was Maastricht University, in the Netherlands. The necessary permissions and the ethic guidelines were provided to the Foreign Ministry of Turkish Republic. The survey questions first sent to the ministry and Ankara, and then they are approved in regard to ethics and international relations concerns. Following, the questions and the application procedure of the survey were approved by the Rotterdam consulate as well. During the surveys, all participants were informed about the anonymity and confidentiality of records and respondents. We provided the statement that participation is voluntary, refusal to participate will involve no penalty, and the subject may discontinue participation at any time without penalty. We provided our contact information both the universities (Maastricht, Istanbul and Marmara). Following their positive decision to take the question, we (the authors of the paper) applied the face-to-face survey at the waiting room in the consulate. We did not store any personal information of the respondents of the survey. The original surveys are stored at the Department of Economics at Marmara University in a good condition.

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Dumludag, D., Gokdemir, O. Income Aspiration, Income Comparison and Life Satisfaction: The case of Turkish Migrants in the Netherlands. J Happiness Stud 23, 1359–1378 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-021-00453-7

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