Psychological and social adjustment of Asian immigrants to Britain: A community survey

Abstract

A community survey of 50 Indian and 50 Pakistani born residents of Birmingham and 100 matched native controls has been completed. Asians were selected so that the sample corresponded to the known demographic characteristics of the immigrant population and were interviewed in their native languages in their own homes. Measures of psychological disturbance, social adjustment, family relationships, housing and employment history as well as attitudinal measures were employed to test some hypotheses concerning the relationship between migration and adjustment. Analysis revealed that on most indices (psychological symptoms, life events, employment, housing, satisfaction) Asian immigrants were better adjusted than their British neighbours. There were strong indications, however, that the British control groups employed were not representative of the British population at large because of their residence in high immigrant concentration areas. The British groups interviewed may have been less well adjusted than a representative British group would have been and so have exaggerated the difference between British and Asian groups. Within the immigrant groups psychological adjustment was related to age and social class among Pakistani males; experiencing disruptive life events was most important for Pakistani females and British controls, crowding correlated with symptoms for Indian and Pakistani females but not for males, and length of residence in Britain was negatively related to symptom levels for Indian males.