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Coping with migration-related stressors - a qualitative study of Nepali male labour migrants

BACKGROUND: International labour migration has become a crucial livelihood strategy, especially in countries where decently paid employment opportunities are limited. Such opportunities come with many potential benefits but also many stressors that challenge migrants’ coping skills, especially when...

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Autores principales: Mak, Joelle, Zimmerman, Cathy, Roberts, Bayard
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8199809/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34118898
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11192-y
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author Mak, Joelle
Zimmerman, Cathy
Roberts, Bayard
author_facet Mak, Joelle
Zimmerman, Cathy
Roberts, Bayard
author_sort Mak, Joelle
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: International labour migration has become a crucial livelihood strategy, especially in countries where decently paid employment opportunities are limited. Such opportunities come with many potential benefits but also many stressors that challenge migrants’ coping skills, especially when they are in a foreign environment away from their normal support network. This paper explores how labour migrants coped with migration-related stressors using a sample of male Nepali migrants. METHODS: Qualitative life histories were conducted in Kathmandu among returnee male migrants. Coping responses were categorised based Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck’s coping typologies. The interview scripts were transcribed in Nepali and translated into English for analysis. Each interview script was open coded and then categorised according to the 12 core coping families. Data were analysed thematically to explore relationships across and within coping and stressors. RESULTS: Forty-two men were interviewed who mainly worked in low- and semi-skilled jobs in Malaysia, and the Gulf States. The coping strategies most commonly used belonged to the families of problem-solving, support-seeking, negotiation and helplessness. Men used these either individually or collectively with other migrants. Those who sought assistance from authorities or civil society organisations did not always receive the help needed and there were mixed messages as to when and what types of assistance were available. Some stressors involved multiple coping strategies simultaneously, others described changing strategies following unsuccessful earlier attempts. The coping families of helplessness and social isolation reflected migrants’ limited power in challenging certain stressors. The choice of coping strategies was also moderated by factors such as outstanding loans, language difficulties, or not wanting to cause their family distress. Some coping strategies used led to  new stressors. CONCLUSIONS: Migrants need greater clarifications on their rights with respect to contract discrepancies, the types of support available, how and from whom to access them once in destination. Improvements to the support mechanisms migrants can access as well as strengthening migrant-led initiatives in destination countries to support labour migrants' in managing stressors are needed. These may contribute to reducing the experiences and impact of such stressors, which may ultimately lead to more successful migration outcomes. As labour migration from Nepal is likely to continue, government and CSOs need to ensure migrants have the support they need to cope with the challenges they may encountered along the way. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-021-11192-y.
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spelling pubmed-81998092021-06-15 Coping with migration-related stressors - a qualitative study of Nepali male labour migrants Mak, Joelle Zimmerman, Cathy Roberts, Bayard BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: International labour migration has become a crucial livelihood strategy, especially in countries where decently paid employment opportunities are limited. Such opportunities come with many potential benefits but also many stressors that challenge migrants’ coping skills, especially when they are in a foreign environment away from their normal support network. This paper explores how labour migrants coped with migration-related stressors using a sample of male Nepali migrants. METHODS: Qualitative life histories were conducted in Kathmandu among returnee male migrants. Coping responses were categorised based Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck’s coping typologies. The interview scripts were transcribed in Nepali and translated into English for analysis. Each interview script was open coded and then categorised according to the 12 core coping families. Data were analysed thematically to explore relationships across and within coping and stressors. RESULTS: Forty-two men were interviewed who mainly worked in low- and semi-skilled jobs in Malaysia, and the Gulf States. The coping strategies most commonly used belonged to the families of problem-solving, support-seeking, negotiation and helplessness. Men used these either individually or collectively with other migrants. Those who sought assistance from authorities or civil society organisations did not always receive the help needed and there were mixed messages as to when and what types of assistance were available. Some stressors involved multiple coping strategies simultaneously, others described changing strategies following unsuccessful earlier attempts. The coping families of helplessness and social isolation reflected migrants’ limited power in challenging certain stressors. The choice of coping strategies was also moderated by factors such as outstanding loans, language difficulties, or not wanting to cause their family distress. Some coping strategies used led to  new stressors. CONCLUSIONS: Migrants need greater clarifications on their rights with respect to contract discrepancies, the types of support available, how and from whom to access them once in destination. Improvements to the support mechanisms migrants can access as well as strengthening migrant-led initiatives in destination countries to support labour migrants' in managing stressors are needed. These may contribute to reducing the experiences and impact of such stressors, which may ultimately lead to more successful migration outcomes. As labour migration from Nepal is likely to continue, government and CSOs need to ensure migrants have the support they need to cope with the challenges they may encountered along the way. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-021-11192-y. BioMed Central 2021-06-12 /pmc/articles/PMC8199809/ /pubmed/34118898 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11192-y Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Mak, Joelle
Zimmerman, Cathy
Roberts, Bayard
Coping with migration-related stressors - a qualitative study of Nepali male labour migrants
title Coping with migration-related stressors - a qualitative study of Nepali male labour migrants
title_full Coping with migration-related stressors - a qualitative study of Nepali male labour migrants
title_fullStr Coping with migration-related stressors - a qualitative study of Nepali male labour migrants
title_full_unstemmed Coping with migration-related stressors - a qualitative study of Nepali male labour migrants
title_short Coping with migration-related stressors - a qualitative study of Nepali male labour migrants
title_sort coping with migration-related stressors - a qualitative study of nepali male labour migrants
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8199809/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34118898
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11192-y
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