Empowerment to enhance social integration among mainland chinese migrants in Hong Kong

A steady influx of migrants originates from Mainland China to stay in Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China since 1997. These migrants face difficulties in integrating into Hong Kong because of discrepancy in lifestyle and sociopolitical environment between Hong Kong and Mainland China. Conceivably, the migrants need empowerment to reduce the discrepancy in order to achieve social integration. Such empowerment can come from the migrants’ hometown or village fellows, superiors, and social service professionals in Hong Kong. Particularly, the professionals provide empowerment through skill training, aid for social networking, individual counseling, and family counseling to the migrants. Nevertheless, how these ways of empowerment enhance the migrants’ social integration is largely uncharted. To shed light on the ways, this study employs survey data collected from 2,846 such migrants. Results revealed a significant but weak main positive effect of aid for social networking on the migrant’s social integration. Moreover, very high levels of aid from superiors and from hometown or village fellows indicated significant positive effects. What is more, individual counseling, skill training, and aid for social networking displayed significant interaction effects coupled with some conditions. These results imply some strategies for empowerment to enhance the migrant’s social integration efficiently.