Exploring older migrants’ meaning-making of ‘happiness’: “The main thing is health. Young people might say otherwise.”

ABSTRACT

Purpose

As our ageing population is growing and diversifying, it is important to gain insight into the well-being of older migrants. However, the meanings of happiness can vary cross-culturally. Therefore, prior to exploring older migrants’ happiness, their meaning-making of “happiness” should be explored. This way, cultural or individual variations can be considered when analysing older migrants’ happiness. Not only migration background but also age could influence the meaning of well-being. For example, the meaning of well-being can change as people grow older. Therefore, both migration background and age are considered in exploring older migrants’ meaning-making of happiness.

Methods

To do so, in-depth interviews with older migrants (n = 22) from various ethnicities were conducted in which their meaning-making of happiness was questioned via a semi-structured interview guide.

Results

After analysing the results via thematic analysis, three overarching themes are discussed: (1) happiness associations, (2) happiness-pursuing strategies, and (3) happiness obstructions. The analysis then further focuses on the role of migration background and ageing on the meaning-making of happiness.

Conclusions

Participants’ meaning-making of happiness seems strongly imbued with age-related references. On the contrary, the impact of migration background is rather limited. To explain this difference, the value of incorporating participants’ life course experiences emerged.

KEYWORDS:

• Meaning-making
• well-being
• happiness
• older migrants
• health
• independence
• social relations

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank all participants in this study for their time and for sharing their experiences. Furthermore, we wish to thank the municipality and community workers from Genk and Maasmechelen for their help in recruiting participants.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. A “general term referring to the various types of subjective evaluations of one’s life, including both cognitive evaluations and affective feelings” (Diener et al., 2018, p. 3).

2. People who migrated at a young age, as a child (Bilecen et al., 2022).

3. Older migrants living in residential care facilities were excluded as the overarching research project focuses on “ageing in place”.

4. Aicha’s exact age is unknown because of unclear birth registrations in Morocco.

5. Isabella meets all search criteria but one (i.e., aged 60 and older). However she was included as she sat in on the interview with her husband Massimo and provided interesting insights.

6. Inge has migrated from the Netherlands to Belgium (1^st generation) and is a second-generation Indonesian migrant following her mother’s migration to the Netherlands.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Bijzonder Onderzoeksfonds UHasselt (Special Research Fund Hasselt University) [BOF19KP01]. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Institutional Review Board (or Ethics Committee) of Hasselt University (REC/SM ECIVRAr/190/107, 30 January 2020).

Notes on contributors

Micheline Phlix

Micheline Phlix is a PhD student in Architecture (Hasselt University) and Adult Educational Sciences (Vrije Universiteit Brussel). Her research interests lie at the intersection of various disciplines: design for wellbeing, environmental gerontology, and migration studies. She explores the sense of home and subjective wellbeing of older migrants and integrates such topics in age-friendly and diversity-sensitive housing and neighbourhood design.

Jan Vanrie

Jan Vanrie (PhD, Psychology) is Associate Professor of Human Sciences and Research Methodology at the Faculty of Architecture and arts, Hasselt University, Belgium. His research interests lie at the intersection of environmental psychology and perception, (interior) architecture, and design research and education. He works with several colleagues in the research group ‘ArcK-Designing for More’, investigating how people experience and interact with the built environment and looking for ways to support designers in design approaches such as design for subjective wellbeing, design for experience and universal design/design for all.

Ann Petermans

Ann Petermans (PhD, Architecture) is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Architecture and Arts, Hasselt University, Belgium. She chairs the Design Research Society’s Special Interest Group on Design for Wellbeing, Happiness and Health. Her research interests pertain in particular to designing for experience in designed environments and for diverse user groups, and research related to design for subjective wellbeing and how architecture and interior architecture can contribute in this respect. Ann is editorial board member of The Design Journal and publishes in various high-quality journals. She is also co-editor of the books Design for Wellbeing: an applied approach (2020) and Retail Design: theoretical perspectives (2017), both published by Routledge.

An-Sofie Smetcoren

An-Sofie Smetcoren (PhD, Adult Educational Sciences) is Assistant Professor and postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Adult Educational Sciences of Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Her main research interests focus on how urban environments affect the daily lives of their older residents (e.g. with a focus on housing but also access to services and care) and thus how processes of social inclusion and exclusion take place in communities. In addition, she has a particular interest in the experiences of and giving voice to older people in vulnerable situations through the use of co-creative and participatory research approaches. As a senior researcher within the Society &Ageing Research Lab, she leads the research line ‘Housing for older adults’.