Chinese migrants’ perception of migration stress and coping methods

Abstract

An exploratory qualitative research was conducted on perceptions of stress among people in the Chinese community, especially new migrants and what they do about it. One question in this research was whether Chinese migrants are aware of and using the public services and, if so, do they find it useful? The selection of participants for this research included three key criteria: participants must be Chinese migrants to Australia, have lived in Australia for two years or less and be a bilingual speaker. In-depth interviews were conducted with eight respondents for 45 minutes to an hour. The interviews were conducted at a place chosen by the participant. Data analysis was qualitative. Each interview was summarised using a transcript file note taking approach. These transcript files were then condensed into case summaries. The case summaries were used to link the material presented in the transcript to conceptual themes and topics relevant to the research question asked. These conceptual themes related to migration stress, settlement problems and the solutions on solving such problems. Migration stress includes: societal, environmental, economic and bridging normative and catastrophic family stress. Settlement problems includes: uprooting period, culture shock, loss of familiar social support, change in economic status, role change and change in social status, lack of control, language problems, unemployment, parenting dilemmas, inter-generation communication gap and adapting to a new education system. Coping with such problems included support from family, relatives and friends.