Do immigrants share the same life satisfaction profile in age as native-born Canadians?

Abstract

This paper studies the difference of life satisfaction profiles between Canadian immigrants and native-born Canadians. In particular, the thesis asks how years of residence in Canada affect the immigrant life satisfaction profile. Using microdata from the 2007 Canadian Health Community Survey, ordered probit and OLS models are employed to estimate the “life satisfaction equation”. The results show that immigrants reach their turning point in the U-shaped life satisfaction profile at age 50 for men and age 42 for women. This is 5 years later than native-born men, and 2 year earlier than native-born women. Further, the life satisfaction levels for immigrants are significantly lower than their native-born counterparts. The value of the low points from the U-shaped profile is 0.39 (on a 5-point scale) lower for immigrant men and 0.42 lower for immigrant women. Also, long-established immigrants (?10 years), have a slightly higher life satisfaction than recent immigrants (<10 years).