Connected but not anchored: digital engagement, life satisfaction and emigration intentions in the Western Balkans

Does digitalisation keep people at home or encourage them to leave? This paper addresses this question for the Western Balkans by distinguishing a well-being channel, through which digital access and use may raise life satisfaction and thereby lower emigration intentions, from an exposure channel, through which digital engagement may raise aspirations and lower the cost of information about opportunities abroad. Using data on 5,497 adults from the fourth Life in Transition Survey (2022–2023), we estimate survey-weighted mediation models with four measures of digitalisation and controls for income, material deprivation, labour-market status, health and transnational ties. The positive link between internet access and life satisfaction largely reflects differences in living standards and weakens substantially once these are taken into account. Life satisfaction is negatively associated with emigration intentions, but the indirect path through life satisfaction is negligible. Broader digital engagement, by contrast, is associated with a higher likelihood of intending to emigrate, a pattern that is consistent with an exposure channel and robust across alternative specifications. The findings suggest that digital expansion alone is unlikely to retain people unless it is accompanied by improvements in the material and institutional conditions that shape life at home.