Happiness and international migration – The spatial dimension of a relationship

The relationship between international migration and happiness is evident and has long been studied in international literature (Brailovskaia et al., 2017; Shamsuddin and Katsaiti, 2020; William, 2019). In this study, we examine the relationship between countries’ levels of happiness and net migration rates relative to their neighbours. The question arose as to whether high happiness is, in any case, associated with a positive migration balance, and whether an unfavourable happiness situation is associated with high emigration. Are there any countries that deviate somewhat from this simple assumption?