The Costs and Benefits of Internal Migration in Japan: How Social Integration Mediates Migrant Happiness

While the psychosocial consequences of migration have been studied at large in the context of international migration, regionally specific movements–such as the U-turn (return migration to place of origin) and I-turn (unidirectional migration to places where migrants have no personal ties) migration patterns characteristic of internal mobility in Japan–have received surprisingly little attention. We collected data from a nationwide online survey (n = 2,500) and studied how past migration behavior relates to self-reported social integration and happiness in the present. Using factor-based mediation models, we show that I-turn and U-turn migrants reach similar average levels of happiness, but do so via opposing social integration pathways: I-turn migrants exhibit lower positive social integration (reducing happiness) but also lower negative social capital (increasing happiness), whereas U-turn migrants show the reverse pattern. These countervailing indirect effects largely cancel each other out at the level of the total effect of happiness, underscoring the importance of measuring both positive and negative facets of social integration when evaluating the well-being consequences of internal migration patterns. We discuss implications for theory in terms of internal migration movements, social integration and negative social capital research, and for policy with regards to integration and revitalization programs in contemporary Japan.