The recent refugees’ inflow and the life satisfaction of residents in Germany

While refugee inflows into Germany have typically been relatively moderate in recent decades, specific exogenous political events such as the Yugoslav civil war in the early 1990s, the intensifying of the Syrian civil war around 2015, and the war in Ukraine since 2022, have generated substantial spikes in refugee arrivals, affecting the receiving society in multiple ways. This study examines the possible association between the large inflows of refugees into German society during the Syrian civil war period and the development of residents’ life satisfaction in Germany. While several studies have addressed the integration of this exceptionally large number of refugees into the German labor market and society, less attention has been paid to the potential impact of recent refugee arrivals on the subjective well-being (SWB) of the resident population, including native Germans and first- and second-generation immigrants. Whereas the literature reports neutral or positive associations between labor migration and residents’ or natives’ life satisfaction, less is known about the association between refugee inflows and residents’ life satisfaction. Using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) enriched with official regional information and data from immigration statistics regarding refugee inflows into Germany, we analyze the association between refugee inflows and residents’ life satisfaction while controlling for established variables associated with life satisfaction. In contrast to political debates, our results demonstrate a significant positive association between residents’ life satisfaction and periods of increased refugee inflows since 2012. Even during the peak years of refugee inflows in 2015 and 2016, we observe increases in residents’ life satisfaction both overall and across specific subgroups. However, as the observed increases are neither linear nor continuous, and vary across time within residential subgroups, we favor an explorative framework and do not claim to identify causal effects.