How public policies help Mainland Chinese young adult immigrants to integrate into Hong Kong society

Abstract

To cope with the ageing population in Hong Kong, a daily quota of 150 one-way permit (OWP) holders have been allowed to settle in Hong Kong administered by the Mainland authorities starting in 1995. This policy has contributed to the rapid population growth in Hong Kong and the new Mainland immigrants account for a large population in Hong Kong nowadays. They will become the major labour force in Hong Kong in the foreseeable future. However, due to cultural differences and competition for social resources, social conflicts between local Hong Kong people and new Mainland immigrants have become intense in recent years. It is the right time for the government to review how existing public policies help new Mainland immigrants to integrate into Hong Kong society. This research aims to study the roles of public policies for social integration and social identity change of new Mainland immigrants in Hong Kong. We examined what Hong Kong identity is, whether there is social identity change among the new immigrants, and whether local public policies help the new immigrants to integrate into the society and lead to social identity change with the concepts of social identity and social-categorization by Tajfel (1974), and selfcategorization by Turner and Oakes (1986). We also examined how acculturation of immigrants leads to their social identity change (Schwartz et al., 2006). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with two social workers and eight young adult Mainland Chinese immigrants to discover their views on the factors influencing social integration and social identity change of new Mainland immigrants. Interesting findings reflected that change in social categorization and self-categorization lead to a social identity change. Meanwhile, a social identity change occurs through immigrant acculturation. However, social integration does not necessarily result in social identity changes.