“Do I fit in here?” How immigrants’ endorsement of social markers is related to their wellbeing in three migrant receiving societies

Social markers of acceptance are the attributes seen as important for immigrants to achieve or display in order to be accepted similarly to a local-born citizen. In research on constructions of national identity, factor analysis reveals a culture-specific, two-factor structure akin to the ethnic–civic distinction observed. In this paper, we extend this work by examining the relationship between social markers of acceptance and immigrants’ well-being in three national contexts: Australia, Japan, and the U.S. Specifically, in study 1 we examined the factor structure of social markers in non-immigrant samples in each context (Australia, n = 1357; Japan, n = 2000; U.S., n = 395). In study 2 we investigated the association between immigrants’ (Australia, n = 521; Japan; n = 878; U.S., n = 174) perceived fit with the ethnic and civic markers from study 1 and their self-rated stress and life satisfaction. We found that immigrants’ self-rated fit with the markers was negatively associated with perceived stress and positively correlated with life satisfaction, though not consistently across well-being indicators or samples. Nonetheless, across samples, self-rated fit with ethnic markers positively predicted life satisfaction, while fit on civic markers negatively predicted perceived stress. These findings underscore the utility of the social markers framework for examining culture fit and immigrant well-being. We further consider the results in relation to the conceptualisation and measurement of immigrant psychological well-being, and the contextual differences in multicultural climate, immigrant acceptance, and immigrant–non-immigrant relations in the three nations examined.