| Summary: | <p>This doctoral research consists of a mixed methods analysis of the subjective well-being of migrants in the UK. The analysis considers the main reason why a person migrated to the UK in the first place, providing additional insight into the case of those who migrated to seek asylum. The qualitative component comprises 20 semi-structured interviews with refugees in the UK. These were conducted between March and August 2022. The quantitative component analyses subjective well-being data from the Annual Population Survey, using datasets from April 2012 to April 2022. Since 2010, this large-scale survey also includes a question indicating migrants’ initial reason for migrating to the UK. These reasons include work, study, family, and asylum-seeking, and this information is the focus of the quantitative component. Findings from these two components are compiled in an integrated thesis, where chapters 4 to 7 constitute standalone articles for submission to academic journals.</p>
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<p>Chapter 1 introduces the motivation for the doctoral research, highlights the overarching research questions and provides an outline for the remaining chapters.</p>
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<p>Chapter 2 reviews conceptual and empirical literature in two areas: first, on the conceptualisation of subjective well-being; second, on migrants’ subjective well-being in destination countries.</p>
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<p>Chapter 3 sets the scene in the UK by outlining characteristics of the country’s immigration and employment policies between 2012 and 2022. Chapter 3 also presents statistics on the migrant population within this timeframe.</p>
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<p>Chapter 4 is one of the main substantive chapters of the thesis. It draws from interviews with refugees in the UK to gain insight into the meaning of happiness and life satisfaction, two widely used measures of subjective well-being, from their perspectives. The interviews highlight significant overlaps between refugees’ understandings of these measures, and how these are conceptualised in broader literature. Important nuances are brought by participants’ unique socio-demographics and experiences, including experiences that relate to asylum-seeking.</p>
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<p>Chapter 5 is one of the main substantive chapters of the thesis. It provides empirical evidence on subjective well-being differences between the UK-born and migrants in the country, based on migrants’ initial reason for migration. To do so, the analysis uses data from the Annual Population Survey for the period 2012-2022. This Chapter further explores whether there are patterns of convergence or divergence in migrants’ subjective well-being with years of residence in the UK, towards subjective well-being levels of those individuals born in the country. The analysis reveals surprisingly few differences in subjective well-being outcomes of migrants who migrated for different reasons, given stark differences in indicators of their objective living outcomes.</p>
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<p>Chapter 6 is one of the main substantive chapters of the thesis. It examines the implications of employment status for differences in subjective well-being between migrants and the UK-born, using Annual Population Survey data for the period 2012-2022. Here also, the analysis considers migrants’ initial reason for migration as a key explanatory factor, alongside migrants’ years of residence in the UK. Findings for this Chapter suggest that migrants’ SWB implications from employment relate to characteristics of the UK’s immigration and employment policies.</p>
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<p>Chapter 7 is the final substantive Chapter of the thesis. It returns to the qualitative interviews and probes the comprehensiveness of widely used measures of subjective well-being in capturing what it means to be well from refugees’ perspectives. In doing so, the Chapter introduces the concept of ‘safeness’, which materialises as an integral component of refugees’ subjective well-being. Safeness is described as a sense of internal peace of mind, extending in present and future temporalities, and which is not entirely related to objective indicators of refugees’ safety. Safeness shares many similarities with subjective well-being components as defined beyond Western contexts, thus opening important avenues for further research.</p>
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<p>Before concluding, Chapter 8 discusses limitations in conducting research on migrants’ subjective well-being in destination countries. Then, the Chapter draws separate conclusions together, indicating three main contributions and suggesting four avenues for further research. Chapter 8 concludes by discussing two policy implications.</p>
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