The Research On Social Adjustment Of The Elderly Migrants

With rapid development of society and urbanization, a large number of young people from othercities have migrated to Beijing annually. They have dreams of building marvelous futures through theirefforts. When they settle down in Beijing, their parents are relatively forced to leave hometown fortaking care of the third generation. These parents are indeed subjects investigated of this paper, namely,the elderly migrants. Applied in qualitative research, this paper will mainly explore social adjustmentprocess of the elderly migrants and analyze certain factors affected. It is expected to bring outsupportive suggestions for this group to live a better life.Through interview, this paper has presented different adjustment process of this group from fourdimensions including psychological adjustment, living accommodation, relation and environmentaladjustment, which are all changed from unfitness to adjustment. The accommodation abilities and statusare all evaluated by themselves. During their migrant life, they have suffered from numerous problemswhich are positively settled and partly in suspense as well. Nevertheless, they become suited to theirsituation eventually.Another point is that different elders may undergo distinct processes and fitting results, on whichare impacted by individual factors，generation relationships and social capital. On the one hand, thehealthy elderly migrants will be apparently easier to fit the new situation and enrich their entertainmentlife. The optimistic elders are prone to overcome setbacks positively instead of avoidance than thosepessimistic ones. On the other hand, generation gap and conflicts between mother-in-law anddaughter-in-law attach certain influence to the generation communication. What’s enjoyable is thatstrong altruism from the old could to some extent soften the relationship and gain positive adjustment.At last, Social capital influences the elderly migrants’ social adaptation.