Pity China’s migrant workers.
As the paper highlighted this Sunday reminds they ‘.. constitute more than one third of the Chinese urban labour force, produce most of the goods exported from China to the rest of the world, and yet are institutionally discriminated against in the Chinese urban labour market. They work much longer hours, are paid less, and are denied the social services and social welfare available to their urban local counterparts.’
Researchers Xin Meng from the Australian National University and IZA* and Sen Xue from Jinan University writing in an Institute of Labour Economics (IZA) working paper in January this year set out to test what effect social networks had on the mental health of migrant workers. [* A German group supported by the Deutsche Post Foundation]
You’d think the answer intuitive and obvious. Surely more contacts are better? Not always and the literature contains studies that have shown how social networks, especially those that involve semi-formal reciprocity, actually generate stress [Facebook anyone? Just saying.].
Understanding this issue better is important as up until 2015 it’s estimated 168-million had made the rural-urban shift in China and around 20% of migrants suffer from what the team called ‘clinically relevant’ mental health issues.
Along the way to discovering the answer to the big question the paper highlights a mental health ‘smile’ effect among migrants. At first they’re excited to be in the big city but disappointment often follows. If they stick at it though, in time, most recover their spirits and adapt to their new circumstances.
The bottom line is that the size of a social network does have positive correlation to mental health of migrant workers. The average circle of acquaintance shakes out at around 13 and those subjects who managed a network beyond this saw progressive benefits to their mental well being.
If you read the paper you’d have a heart of stone if you couldn’t imagine, beneath the dry data, the brutish day to day reality of life for this sub-group; and these are people moving within the same culture.
Those who believe migrants elsewhere in the world are driven by a desire to set up hammocks in benefit showering El Dorados should be especially encouraged to have a look*.
Happy Sunday, count your blessings.
[You can access the paper in full via this link Social Networks and Mental Health Problems. *The self-evidence of immigrants being a net good thing for an economy was highlighted to me by a piece in this week’s Economist magazine. In an article with the headline ‘Startup-Kultur’ they point out that in 2015 44% of new businesses set up in Germany were done so by people with foreign passports, up from 13% in 2003. The article in full is at Startup-Kultur .]