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Coping with Coping: International Migrants’ Experiences of the Covid‐19 Lockdown in the UK

ABSTRACT: Abstract Globally, policymakers have overlooked the challenges faced by international migrants in host countries during the Covid‐19 pandemic. The policies and support systems designed by host governments highlight the lack of social justice and raise concerns for scholarly attention. Considering the experiences of international migrants living in the UK during the Covid‐19 lockdown from the theoretical perspective of coping, this interpretivist study investigates international migrants’ coping strategies adopted during the first UK national lockdown. Data collected from 60 Chinese, Italian and Iranian migrants using semi‐structured interviews during the lockdown period were analysed thematically using NVivo. The findings show that migrants adopted multi‐layered and multi‐phase coping strategies. To cope with the anxiety and uncertainties caused by the pandemic, they initiated new practices informed by both home and host institution logics. Nevertheless, the hostile context's responses provoked unexpected new worries and triggered the adoption of additional and compromising practices. The paper illustrates how coping became paradoxical because migrants had to cope with the hostile reactions that their initial coping strategies provoked in the host environment. By introducing the new concept of coping with coping, this paper extends previous theoretical debate and leads to several managerial implications for governments and policymakers.

SUBMITTER: Yen D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8209924 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:With the disruption of nonessential research due to the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers faced unexpected changes in their work and personal life. We assessed what challenges researchers encountered during lockdown and whether gender, career level, discipline, and job-permanency influenced their experiences (negative and positive), thereby collecting empirical material which could provide valuable information for future mentoring/supporting practices. Data were collected between July-August 2020 via an online-survey, and answers from 210 respondents (78% female, 21% male, 1% non-disclosed gender) working in Animal Behaviour and Welfare (ABW, 57%), other biological sciences (37%) or social sciences (6%) were analysed. Respondents were post-graduate students (35%), research associates (35%), and professors (22%) or classified as 'other' (8%), and overall fixed-term (55%) and permanent (45%) jobholders. We expected that early career researchers, non-permanent jobholders, and female respondents would report more challenges/less positive experiences during lockdown. Due to the widespread impact of the pandemic, we predicted no effect of academic disciplines. We found great inter-individual difference in the experiences reported by the respondents, with some reporting adaptation to a new routine within a week (31% of the respondents) and/or greater efficiency working from home (19%) while others felt less efficient working from home and/or experienced a greater imbalance towards work (30%) and/or increased personal responsibilities (24%). The most commonly reported challenges were the lack of informal contact with colleagues (63%), a loss of focus due to worry or stress (53%) and/or unsuitable working environments (47%). Postgraduate students, research associates, non-permanent jobholders and ABW researchers reported more work-related challenges (p = from 0.03 to <0.0001) and were more likely to worry about the future (p = from 0.0002 to <0.0001) than other career levels, permanent jobholders, and researchers from other disciplines respectively. We found no gender effect (p = from 0.006 [NS due to Benjamini-Liu correction for multiple comparisons, 24 metrics tested] to 1.000), except that female respondents reported more personal changes affecting their ability to work than male respondents (p = 0.037). On a positive note, most respondents (83%) perceived positive changes during lockdown and 60% reported one or more coping strategies during lockdown, with exercising/outdoor activities and interacting with family/friends most commonly reported. Based on our findings, we provide recommendations for overcoming the reported Covid-19-related challenges which could further deliver valuable guidance for supporting/mentoring schemes and activities fostering a more resilient research community.

Project description:BACKGROUND: Few studies have addressed the challenges that international medical students face and there is a dearth of information on the behavioural strategies these students adopt to successfully progress through their academic program in the face of substantial difficulties of language barrier, curriculum overload, financial constraints and assessment tasks that require high proficiency in communication skills. METHODS: This study was designed primarily with the aim of enhancing understanding of the coping strategies, skill perceptions and knowledge of assessment expectations of international students as they progress through the third and fourth years of their medical degree at the School of Medicine, University of Tasmania, Australia. RESULTS: Survey, focus group discussion and individual interviews revealed that language barriers, communication skills, cultural differences, financial burdens, heavy workloads and discriminatory bottlenecks were key factors that hindered their adaptation to the Australian culture. Quantitative analyses of their examination results showed that there were highly significant (p < 0.001) variations between student performances in multiple choice questions, short answer questions and objective structured clinical examinations (70.3%, 49.7% & 61.7% respectively), indicating existence of communication issues. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the challenges, these students have adopted commendable coping strategies and progressed through the course largely due to their high sense of responsibility towards their family, their focus on the goal of graduating as medical doctors and their support networks. It was concluded that faculty needs to provide both academic and moral support to their international medical students at three major intervention points, namely point of entry, mid way through the course and at the end of the course to enhance their coping skills and academic progression. Finally, appropriate recommendations were made.

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Coping with Coping: International Migrants’ Experiences of the Covid‐19 Lockdown in the UK

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