Social Inclusion and Health Conditions Among Chinese Immigrants in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom: An Exploratory Study

Whether and how immigrants are included in the host society has become a hot topic in the context of globalization. How inclusive a society is for immigrants can be answered by comparing the inclusion of immigrants to near-culture host society and those to a different-culture society. This paper reports the social inclusion and their correlation with health conditions among Chinese immigrants in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. Two non-probability sample surveys were conducted using the Social and Communities Opportunities Profile and its Chinese version as survey instruments. Altogether 56 new arrivals in Hong Kong and 51 immigrants in UK were recruited through NGOs to participate in face-to-face individual interviews. Both Hong Kong and UK participants reported high overall social inclusion. The two sub-samples shared many similarities in the perceived opportunities and satisfaction of opportunities in various social domains. There was evidence that immigrants in a host society with similar language demonstrated higher perceived satisfaction with opportunities in contact with friends and family, as well as higher perceived opportunities for community involvement than immigrants in a society with a different language. However, overall social inclusion appeared to be independent of one’s health conditions.