The impact of participation in adult learning on life satisfaction of people with a migration background and natives – a longitudinal analysis

In public discourse, education is often regarded as an essential resource to support integration of people with migration background. Beyond formal education, politics and academia consider continuing adult learning and education (ALE) (e.g. language and integration courses) as a measure to foster integration. Recently, subjective parameters of successful integration, such as life satisfaction, are getting increasing academic attention. Despite this rising scholarly interest, research on the impact of education on subjective integration parameters is still rare. To address this research gap, the present study contributes to the literature by investigating the impact of ALE participation on life satisfaction in a longitudinal design. The study uses data from the adult starting cohort of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). In seven annual waves (2011/12 – 2017/18), N = 6,393 individuals, of which N =1,002 individuals have a migration background, were asked in detail about their ALE activities as well as their life satisfaction. In line with existing research on an ‘immigrant-native gap’ in life satisfaction, we test (1) differences in the levels of life satisfaction of people with migration background compared to natives over time. Theoretically based on assimilation theories, we further estimate (2) the effect of ALE participation on life satisfaction over time depending on the individual participation volume and contents, and (3) the effect of ALE on life satisfaction within the group of people with migration background compared to natives (interaction effect).