Intergenerational Relations And The Elderly Immigrants’ Adaptation

In the current background of accelerated population migration and rapidly advancing of the aging process,Chinese aging population’s migration across provinces and cities has caused widespread concerns from all over the society.By the end of the sixth national population census,the amount of elderly immigrants in Shanghai has reached159500.For the elderly immigrants,the transfer of geographic space and the change of living environment might bring stress and challenges to their way of life, values and psychological state,therefore, how to adapt to the new environment is the first problem which they have to face and solve.Because family is the most basic field domain for the elderly immigrants,which has very important influence on elderly immigrants’adaptation to Shanghai,thus,our core research subject is how intergenerational relations affect elderly immigrants’adaptation.Studying on elderly immigrants’adaptation can help us to understand the current living conditions of the elderly immigrants,focus on their service needs and the main problem they face.This research mainly adopts the method of snowball sampling, chooses21elderly immigrants in the M community of Shanghai from13provinces for the survey,uses the in-depth interview and observation method to collect research data, and analyzes the qualitative data systematically.By employing Intergenerational ambivalence theory in the study of intergenerational relations to construct the analysis framework and combining with the actual situation of family intergenerational relations in current China,this paper examines the elderly immigrants’ intergenerational relations from the two dimensions of intergenerational support and intergenerational conflict, and sheds light on that how the intergenerational relations affect elderly immigrants’ adaptation.The study found that21elderly immigrants would feel the stress from the system level, daily life, interpersonal communication and psychological level etc in the new environment.Elderly immigrants’adaptation to Shanghai is the process of coping with the stress essentially.In the process, intergenerational relations include both the protective and the risk factors which affect elderly immigrants’adaptation.They are both the source of support and stress.On the one hand, the positive support relationship can provide the material guarantee for elderly immigrants’adaptation to Shanghai.enhance their ability to adapt, weaken and reduce some stress in the new environment which may have adverse effect on elderly immigrants’adaptation to Shanghai,playing a protective role in the process of adaptation;On the other hand,intergenerational conflict increases the stress of elderly immigrants’adaptation,affects their physical and mental health, forces elderly immigrants to interrupt their adaptation process.At this time, intergenerational relations are the risk factors in their process of adaptation.These conclusions are the response to the core research issue of this paper.