Friendship Formation and Satisfaction with Life of International Students in the Netherlands

Abstract

The aim of this research is to examine to what extent different types of social ties have an influence on life satisfaction of international students in the Netherlands. In the academic year 2017-2018 the most international students ever recorded (122.000) were studying in the Netherlands. The research question that will be investigated is: “Is there a difference in life satisfaction of International Students in the Netherlands between different types of social ties?” The research was conducted in the Netherlands among 53 international students. A survey was distributed questioning the participants’ satisfaction with life, the type of friendships and the quality of these friendships. To analyze the data a Kruskall-Wallis test was performed among three groups; international students with relatively more home country friends, with relatively more international friends and with relatively more Dutch friends. The results show that there are significantly more international students who have the most international friends. However there was no significant difference found between the three groups and life satisfaction, this did not support the expectation. To gain more knowledge and understanding on this topic more research should be done on the quality of stable and unstable friendship relations and the idea of compressed time.