Impact of social stigma and discriminatory experience on mental health of new generation mi-grant workers:An analysis of the mediating effects incurred from several factors / 中国卫生政策研究

ABSTRACT

Objective: This paper aims at exploring the impacts of social stigma and discriminatory experience on mental health of the new generation migrant workers, thereby simultaneously examining the function of several me-diating effects among them. Methods: Adopting the quota sampling methods, a total of 815 new generation migrant workers were selected from Changsha, Xiangtan, Ningbo, Hangzhou and Shenzhen to complete survey questionnaire. The Structural Equation Models ( SEM) was established to examine the relationship between several determinants and mediating factors thereof. Results: The results of the survey showed that (1) The social stigma and discriminatory experience had direct negative effects on mental health. (2 ) The expectation-reality discrepancy and coping style have partial mediating effects on mental health as per perceived social stigma and discriminatory experiences. (3) The full preparation prior to the migration presents significantly positive correlation with the active coping skills of the new generation migrant workers, which were positively related to their mental health and psychological adaptability. (4) The negative coping style has a significantly negative correlation with mental health, and can predict the mental health status among the new generation migrant workers. Conclusions: Creating a fair competition environment, es-tablishing a migration training mechanism to improve the coping skills of the new generation migrant workers and mak-ing the full preparations for the migration are beneficial to the improvement of those workers’ mental health.