The Influence Of Social Assimilation On Mental Health Of Rural Migrant Workers

BackgroundThe historical experience have taught us that the transfer of labor force from agricultural sectors to non-agricultural sectors is an inevitable trend in the industrialization process,and the demographic dividend brought about by the successful strategy of transferring surplus agricultural labor force is an important driving force on the economic growth for countries in transition.Since the great reform and opening up,a gigantic number of rural-to-urban migrant workers have emerged in China.According to statistical data,the volume has reached 135.06 million in 2018.Rural migrant workers have made great contributions to the economic and social development of the nation,however,under the profound impact of China's special urban-rural dual structure and planned economy system,they are facing serious institutional exclusion.Meanwhile,their own human capital accumulation is seriously inadequate,and they are lacking of external support provided by high quality social capital,making it difficult for them to truly get assimilated into urban life.A great vulnerability exist in their mental health status.The theory of social assimilation began in the western academic circles.In the 20th century,great progress has been made in the relevant area.A large number of achievements have emerged,such as assimilation,acculturation,segmented assimilation,bumpy-line approach and multiculturalism.At the beginning of the 21st century,the theory of social assimilation started to attract attention from the academic circles of China,and has been gradually used for reference in the research field of rural migrant workers.The social assimilation of rural migrant workers is not only a process,but also an instant state,and has both dynamic and instrumental characteristics.A few studies have noticed the impact of system,endowment and other factors on the social assimilation of rural migrant workers,and verified the effects of social assimilation on employment,consumption,life satisfaction and other outcome indicators of rural migrant workers,but there is still a lack of research on the health effects of social assimilation of migrant workers.ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to understand the present situation and predicament of rural migrant workers'mental health status,analyze the influence of multiple factors including instituteonal exclusion,human capital,social capital and social assimilation on the mental health of migrant workers,explore the relationship among various factors and to reveal their influencing paths.Meanwhile,this study purposed to decompose the differences in mental health between different groups of rural migrant workers,and research the causes of the differences.The findings could provide suggestions for the government to carry out reasonable intervention models to improve the mental health status of rural migrant workers in the future.MethodsThe study employed a large sample cross-section survey.From July to August2018,a total of 2434 valid samples of migrant workers were obtained from Binjiang District and Yuhang District of Hangzhou by using multi-stage sampling method.The investigators carried out a questionnaire survey in the community field,and the questionnaires were collected and checked on the spot to control the quality of the survey.Obtained data were inputted by Epidata 3.1 software of Chinese version,the demographic representativeness of the sample was investigated by Myer's index.The main variables in the questionnaire consisted:1)socio-demographic characteristics:including gender,age,household registration,marriage status,sector,income;2)migration characteristics:including family migration style,time staying in the city;3)institutional exclusion factors:including household registration exclusion,employment exclusion,residence exclusion,labor right exclusion,and social security exclusion;4)human capital factors:including education level,number of vocational training,number of qualification certificates,self-assessment of health;5)social capital factors:including countryside social capital,urban social capital;6)social assimilation was measured using the migrant workers'urban assimilation scale including three dimensions:economic assimilation,behavior assimilation and political assimilation;7)coping style was measured by the simple coping style scale,including two dimensions:positive coping and negative coping.8)mental health:including stress and suicidal ideation.Stress was measured by the Chinese perceived stress scale,while suicidal ideation was measured by the 9th item of the Chinese version of Beck depression inventory,2nd edition.A small quantity of missing values in the database were supplemented by expected maximization algorithm.The statistical methods used in data analysis included descriptive statistical analysis,scale reliability analysis,exploratory factor analysis,multiple linear regression,logistic regression,Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition and path analysis.The statistical softwares used were SPSS 23.0,STATA 14.0 and AMOS 23.0.Results1)The mental health status of rural migrant workers:the average stress score of the migrant workers was 25.69±6.44 points.Referring to the judgment standard of the health dangerous pressure state of urban residents,the prevalence of health risk stress of rural migrant workers was 56.2%,the 95%CI of the prevalence for the overall population was(54.3%,58.2%).The positive rate of suicidal ideation in two weeks among rural migrant workers was 9.3%,and the 95%CI of the positive rate for the overall population was(8.2%,10.5%).2)The influencing factors of stress of rural migrant workers:results of the multiple linear regression model showed that human capital(?=-0.07,p=0.004),economic assimilation(?=-0.21,p<0.001),behavior assimilation(?=-0.098,p<0.001)were negatively correlated with stress.Among the covariates,gender(?=0.055,p=0.008)and generation(?=0.151,p<0.001)significantly influenced stress.3)The decomposition of the group difference of stress of rural migrant workers:The results of Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition showed that,the estimated mean difference of stress between different gender was-0.818,and the stress difference caused by the difference of the characteristic coefficients could explain 87.78%of the total difference;the estimated mean difference of stress between different generation was-2.056,and the stress difference caused by the difference of characteristic coefficients could explain 110.26%of the total difference;the estimated mean difference of stress between different marriage status was-0.785,and the stress difference caused by the difference of characteristic coefficients could explain 75.41%of the total difference.The differences of stress between different sex,generation and marriage condition groups of rural migrant workers all embodied a sizable discriminational effect.Therefore,the female,the new generation,and the non-married faced a relatively larger health vulnerability.4)Social assimilation of the migrant workers and its influencing factors:Among the three dimensions of social assimilation,behavior assimilation was the highest,then economic assimilation,and political assimilation was the lowest.Moreover,the economic assimlation of the new generation was significantly higher than that of the old generation,showing a typical straight-line characteristics.The results of multiple linear regression showed that the influencing factors of economic assimilation included gender(?=0.115,p<0.001),marriage status(?=0.064,p=0.015),sector(?=0.058,p=0.005),income(?=0.121,p<0.001),time staying in the city(?=-0.056,p=0.022),institutional exclusion(?=-0.186,p<0.001),and human capital(?=0.073,p=0.002);The influencing factors of behavior assimilation included gender(?=-0.071,p<0.001),income(?=0.082,p<0.001),institutional exclusion(?=-0.111,p<0.001),human capital(?=0.173,p<0.001),and countryside social capital(?=0.081,p=0.001);The influential factors of political asimilation included household registration(?=-0.04,p=0.052),sector(?=0.044,p=0.039),institutional exclusion(?=-0.13,p<0.001),human capital(?=0.067,p=0.004),and urban social capital(?=0.077,p=0.001).5)The test of"Dual dis-embeddedness"hypothesis among new-generation rural migrant workers:There was no significant difference in the scores of institutional exclusion between the new generation and the old generation(t=1.541,p=0.123),but the levels of countryside social capital(t=-4.374,p<0.001)and urban social capital(t=-5.469,p<0.001)of the new generation of migrant workers were significantly higher than those of the old generation.Rural social capital played a positive role in regulating the relationship between institutional exclusion and behavioral integration(B=-0.125,p=0.015).Therefore,the two basic assumptions of this hypothesis were not proved by our empirical data.6)The path model analysis of stress:The overall fit of the path analysis model including covariates,institutional exclusion,human capital,social capital and social standardized direct effects of gender,generation,human capital,economic assimilation,behavioral assimilation on stress were 0.061,0.178,-0.071,-0.192,-0.108,respectively.7)The influencing factors of suicidal ideation of rural migrant workers:multi-factor logistic regression analysis showed that female(OR=1.74,p<0.001),economic assimilation(OR=0.86,p<0.001),stress(OR=1.1,p<0.001),positive coping(OR=0.97,p=0.034),and negative coping(OR=1.1,p<0.001)were influencing factors of suicidal ideation.8)The path analysis of the suicidal ideation of the migrant workers:The overall fit of the suicidal ideation analysis model including covariates,stress,social assimilation and coping styles was accepted(c~2/df=2.488,GFI=0.997,RMSEA=0.025).The standardized direct effects of gender,economic assimilation,negative coping,and stress on suicidal ideation were 0.065,-0.1,0.101,0.163,respectively.Conclusion1)The influencing factors of stress of rural migrant workers included gender,generation,human capital,economic assimilation and behavior assimilation.The influencing factors of rural migrant workers'suicidal ideation included gender,stress,economic assimilation,positive coping and negative coping.2)Women compared with men,the new generation compared with the old generation,and the non-married compared with the married showed higher stress.The stress difference between different gender,generation and marriage condition groups mainly came from the difference of marginal effect of endowment factors between different groups.Therefore,the female,the new generation and the non-married rural migrant workers have a relatively larger health vulnerability.3)The hypothesis of"Dual dis-embeddedness"over the new generation rural migrant workers has failed to pass the test of empirical evidence,however,the scientific nature of the hypothesis is still worthy of further exploration in the future.4)Social assimilation could play a mediating role in the relationship between social and demographic characteristics,institutional exclusion,endowment capital factors and stress of migrant workers.5)Social assimilation could play a moderating role in the relationship between social and demographic characteristics,stress,coping style and suicidal ideation of migrant workers.Based on the conclusions,this study proposed several policy suggestions to improve the social assimilation level and mental health status of migrant workers in the future.On one hand,as regarding social assimilation,first,continue to promote household registration reform,eliminate institutional barriers to achieve the integrated development of both urban and rural areas;second,increase the investment of human capital of migrant workers to build a high-quality army of modern industrial workers;third,create a harmonious community environment and promote cross-community interaction,to achieve a real sense of identity change.On the other hand,as regarding mental health status,first,take a variety of measures in urban communities to strengthen the mental health services for rural migrant workers;second,explore and apply more innovative mechanism to promote mental health education toward rural migrant workers.