Investigation of Chinese immigrants assimilation patterns in Hong Kong labour market

• Main Author: Ng, Chi Man
• Other Authors: Sung, Johnny
• Published: University of Leicester 2012
• Subjects: 331
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.551736

Hong Kong is a society of Chinese immigrants whose adaptation has become a great concern to both policymakers and scholars. In the last two decades, the handover of Hong Kong sovereignty to People's Republic of China on 1 July 1997 and the Asian financial crisis did create a gap in the China-Hong Kong migration literature. Besides, Hong Kong immigration department adopted three new admission schemes in the last decade, the thesis contributes to the literature by incorporating the consideration of them and address two assimilation questions, the first research question is about the relationship between Chinese immigrants' characteristics and the corresponding effects on their assimilation patterns in Hong Kong labour market, the author investigates the variation of Chinese immigrants assimilation patterns and explains why patterns vary under different economic settings. The second research question is about Chinese immigrants' endowment which consists of Putonghua speaking skills and 'China-knowledge', this "endowment effect" can somewhat explain the assimilation pattern as these two skills are becoming increasingly important after the handover of Hong Kong sovereignty the author estimates the effect of this endowment on Chinese immigrants assimilation patterns. Methodologically, the author answers these two research questions through the triangulation of quantitative and qualitative approach. In quantitative analysis, six Hong Kong census datasets are employed and fifteen individual in-depth interviews scripts are analyzed in qualitative side. The author expects the validity of assimilation hypothesis depends on different economic circumstances. The major contribution of this thesis is to find out in what particular situation the assimilation hypothesis is true, and qualitative results are employed to explain why the assimilation patterns are proved to be different between male and female, amongst various marital statuses, industries and occupations.