China has among the world’s fastest growing urban region and faced enormous environmental and social challenges that requires a forward thinking of urban planning, which integrates environmental sustainability and social equity into urban resilience. In China, national and provincial urban policies have long focused on economic and industrial developments, whereas social welfare was not account for urban planning until very recently. After decades of rapid socioeconomic development, China has now entered an urbanization stage at which social development becomes as urgent as economic and environmental transformation. Rural migrant as a lower social group is a product of China’s rigorous rural-urban household registration (Hukou) that has caused plenty of social tragedies. Although governmental authorities have vowed to elevate rural migrants’ social status, as a heterogeneous social group, rural migrants received very little research attention by far. To examine rural migrants’ demographic information and their social status, this research employs happiness as a theme to carry out a questionnaire survey. In total, 1,267 responses were collected at bus and train stations in Changsha, a second-tier city located in the middle of China. According to the survey, rural migrants’ happiness status is in close relation with some demographic characteristics such as gender, ethnicity and education. In general, men are unhappier than women; the ethnic minorities are unhappier than the ethnic majority-Han; and the highly educated are unhappier than those with lower educational attainment. By performing a stepwise regression, statistics uncover that rural migrants’ happiness status in Changsha is positively associated with a stable income, a job with insurance and a well sustained family tie. Based on the study results, I propose three suggestions for social urban planning in China’s second-tier cities: (1) to set up a commercial district that embraces diverse ethnic groups, where the minor ethnic rural migrants can work and live with their own cultures. (2) To gather rural migrants by industry and establish labour unions that can represent for rural migrants’ interests. (3) To maintain the discriminated Hukou system, but define Hukou identity based on rural migrants’ taxation conditions.     Keywords: rural migrants, demographic characteristics, happiness factors, social urban planning

This    qualitative research investigates the social positions of Peruvian female migrants in the Catalan labour market in Spain. It questions how social categories interactin order to determine the social positions of individuals, a nd how the positions can be related to a global  world structure.   Four unstructured life story interviews with  Peruvian women resident in  Catalonia were realized in December 2014. The interviews and two previously made studies have then been reviewed by a narrative analysis. The research formed a theoretical framework of intersectionality interpreted by Nina Yuval-Davis, and a globalization and female migration theory by Saskia Sassen.  The analysis with the  implementation of theories showed that nationality has a particularly strong influence in the intersection of social categories, though one must understand how all the identifications lay imbedded in each other in order to determine the social position of each individual. It was  also concluded that an intersection of the identifications of the individuals interacts with global structures in order to determine the  social positions of the study participants in the Catalan labour market.The city of Barcelona  could through the lives of the four Peruvian females be seen as an economic centre that demands cheap labour by migrants, and where the social positions in the labour market can show a division of core and peripheral countries.

The Diploma thesis deals with the issue of the integration of immigrants in the pre-retirement and retirement age in the Czech Republic. The main aim of the work is to describe and analyze a group of immigrant women in pre-retirement and retirement age in the Czech Republic, provide an overview of the situation of the women with focus on their special position in the social system and evaluate their process of integration into Czech society. The theoretical part provides the characteristics of immigrants in the Czech Republic. It is focused on the basic definitions, concepts and theories directly related to the process of immigrant integration in the pre-retirement and retirement age, thus the areas of the migration and integration, social and pension system, old age and the aging process with regard to the specific situation in the Czech Republic, including examples from abroad. The research part contains the results of research conducted mainly through the semi- structured interviews with immigrants and focuses on the methods of immigration, the process of integration, economic and social situation of immigrant women. The obtained data are confronted with information provided through interviews with experts in the field and with the findings from professional literature.

Magister Psychologiae - MPsych / In the context of recent attacks that occurred against foreign nationals (migrants) in South Africa, this study sought to explore attitudes toward migrants and immigration among a sample of students at the University of the Western Cape. Previous studies in South Africa and elsewhere have suggested that in most countries, nationals tend to hold negative attitudes toward migrants and express protectionist attitudes toward migration policies. Research around students' attitudes toward migrants and immigration has shown similar trends. The present study employed a sample survey design to investigate: a) Students' attitudes toward African migrants, b) Students' attitudes toward migration into South Africa and c) Degree of contact that students have with African Migrants. A convenience sample of 183 undergraduate psychology students was used. Students‟ age ranged between 18 and 38 years of age (x = 20 years). Data was collected using a questionnaire comprising of 27 questions related to attitudes towards migrants and immigration as well as a section on contact with migrants. The results show that students showed exclusionary attitudes in terms of immigration, limited contact with migrants and negative attitudes toward African migrants. However, attitudes toward migrant‟s rights were positive. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Magister Artium - MA / This thesis explores the different ways in which labour migrants in contemporary South Africa make use of cell phones in their daily lives to maintain their love relationships. I start by tracing the history of labour migration and show how the gradual change of migration has played a role in the assertion of labour migrants in their communities in Cape Town. I look specifically into the use of cell phone by Setswana and Sesotho speaking migrants in Delft, Thornton, Brackenfell and Gugulethu. While the focus of the research is on the role of cell phones in maintaining love relationships between migrants and the partners they left behind ‘at home’, I also show how the negotiation of the cell phone in the social lives of migrants helps build wider social networks. The value of the functions of the cell phone through employed communication patterns that encourage social relations and interactions are also the focus of this thesis.

The aim of this thesis was to describe and analyse perceptions of psychosis care among those involved in care, foreign-born persons with psychoses, their families and health care staff, and further to reach agreement about core components in psychosis care. This was in order to find out whether current psychosis care in Sweden is suitable for foreign-born persons and their families. The study design was explorative and descriptive. Health care staff (n=35), persons with psychosis (n=22) and families (n=26) of persons with psychosis were chosen from different regions in Southern Sweden. To capture health care staff’s experiences and to explore whether specific needs occurred within psychiatric care, nine focus group interviews were held. The perspectives of psychosis care among persons with psychoses and their families were captured through individual interviews. Finally, a study was accomplished all over Sweden in which staff, foreign-born persons with psychosis and foreign-born families of persons with psychoses answered a questionnaire to identify core components in psychosis care of foreign-born persons and their families. There was agreement that the core components in psychosis care concern general psychiatric caring, even though varying perceptions were identified. Asking about foreign-born persons’ religious and ethnic background or having the possibility to decide whether care should be provided by male or female staff were agreed to be less important. No agreement could be reached concerning the importance of considering different perceptions of psychosis care, treatments and different ways of managing the psychosis. Nor could agreement be reached as to whether staff should have specific cultural knowledge and whether interpreters should be unknown to the family but speak the right dialect. Perceptions among staff in somatic and psychiatric care as well as perceptions among foreign- and Swedish-born persons with psychosis and their families were more similar than different. General psychiatric care is important for Swedish-born as well as foreign-born persons with psychosis and their families, indicating the importance of not letting culturally determined perceptions dictate the care and take away energy from health care staff and make them lose their focus on the basic elements in general psychiatric care. However, within the general care there were individual perceptions on whose importance those involved in care did not agree. Further development suggested is to illuminate the importance of identifying individual perceptions which may differ between different persons and could be related to cultural background. Staff need to acquire strategies so they can easily manage to encounter and offer general care to foreign-born persons. Development must be achieved on both an organizational level and an individual level.

This research focuses on the lives of migrant mine labourers in the Free State Gold mines of Welkom. After a lengthy absence from home, away from home, some of the migrant mine labourers contact the deadly disease of HIV/AIDS. As they become weaker to work at the mines, some are relegated work at the surface, some are sent to the local hospice whilst some are left to die alone without anyone caring for them. The local community of Welkom regarded these miners as the carriers and transporters of this deadly disease due to their perceived slackness in morality by using the services of the local ladies of the night (commercial sex workers). On the basis of the above painted scenario, the migrant mine labourers were thus subjected to discrimination and stigmatisation by the local community, who regarded them as foreigners even in their country of birth. The research, therefore, aimed to pastorally journey with the infected mine labourers through their trauma of being infected by HIV/AIDS AND of being discriminated and rejected by the community which is supposed to support them in their hour of need and despair. Since the spread of HIV/AIDS is largely through sexual contact, the research, therefore, examined both the community and the church’s attitude towards sex, stigma and discrimination. A participatory observation approach was used and the analysis of the concepts that were at play during the trauma of the infected mine labourers were examined. In this research, the local community was viewed as the fertile ground of hostility against the infected migrant mine labourers. In this regard, the study powered the infected mining community with the challenges posed by HIV/AIDS and therefore sought ways and means of forming a support base for those infected and affected. This was done by breaking the conspiracy of silence around the issue of HIV/AIDS both at the community and the church level. Finally, the study concluded with ways of empowering the pastoral care-giver on how to journey with someone who has been diagnosed with HIV in order to close one’s last chapter of life in honour and dignity. New approaches based on relevant literature and affirmation of God’s power and healing were suggested. / Dissertation (MA(Theol))--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Practical Theology / unrestricted

The following is a study of the impact of migration on unemployment rates for natives in Sweden, on municipal level. A cross sectional data set has been analyzed using multiple linear regressions. The regression analysis has searched for the impact on the unemployment rates among natives of the size of the share of migrants in the municipalities as well as of the change in the size of the share of migrants during a time span of 13 years. The results show that migration has small or non-existent impact on the unemployment rates of natives. The results vary depending on the period being investigated and also depending on the characteristics of the municipality that is investigated. When dividing the municipalities into three categories (city, urban and rural municipalities) significant impact of migration on native’s unemployment rates is to be found in city and urban municipalities, but not in rural. The results also indicate that the most significant impact is to be found in the present period of time, while in the long term the impact diminishes to become less significant or not significant at all. 10% migrants in a city municipality in 2015 increased natives’ unemployment level that same year by 0.4 percentage units. More rapid increases of the share of migrants in the labor force have more impact as well. A municipality were the share of migrants grew with 1 percentage unit between 2003 and 2015, had 0.1 percentage unit higher unemployment rate for natives in 2015. This study’s results follow the pattern from earlier studies in the field, that since the 1990’s have shown similar effects when measuring different countries on different continents – sometimes the effect has been significant, sometimes not, and when significant the impact has been rather small, often clustering around zero.

Au cœur du processus de construction de l'économie de la connaissance, les diasporas sont considérées comme des leviers du développement. Ainsi, on observe un intérêt grandissant de la part des gouvernements et des organisations internationales pour la production et la mobilisation des Diaspora Knowledge Networks. Dans le même temps, les associations de migrants sont de plus en plus nombreuses et l'émigration qualifiée en Amérique Latine atteint des sommets. En partant de ce constat, cette thèse a eu pour but d'observer les dynamiques de circulation du savoir entre l'Europe et les pays andins. Alors, cette thèse se construit autour de l'idée du partage de l'espace diasporique entre la société civile, les administrations des pays d'origine et pays de destination. La thèse consiste donc à montrer comment les modes de spatialisation diffèrent selon que l'on étudie une initiative systémique ou par le bas. Ainsi, en bénéficiant des expériences andines et européennes, à partir des organisations de la société civile, cette thèse révèle le partage des diasporas par, et entre, ses acteurs. / In the knowledge based economy building process, diasporas are seen as a development enabler. Thus we observe a growing interest of governments and international organizations in promoting and mobilizing diasporas knowledge networks, allowing them to contribute to national research and development activities in their countries of origin. In the mean time, diaspora organizations are growing and emigration of highly qualified at the highest rates ever reached in South America. Considering this situation as a starting point, this thesis was dedicated to observe dynamics of knowledge circulations between Europe and the Andean countries. In so doing, this thesis makes its point showing how the civil society, the origin countries and destination countries administrations share the diasporic space undertsood as the space of knowledge circulations. From this perspective we show that spatialization modes are different between systemic or spontanous initiatives. Thus, benefiting from andean and european experiences among civil society organizations we state that diasporas are both shared and split by their actors.

A study was conducted to investigate and compare the nutritional status and physical work performance of children of Brazilian migrant agricultural workers with Brazilian children from wel1-to-do backgrounds. The relationship between nutritional status and physical work performance was also investigated. Dietary analysis was conducted using the 24-hour diet recall method. Evidence was found that intakes of energy, calcium, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, and vitamin C may have been inadequate among migrant worker children. Their diet was generally monotonous and consisted mainly of rice, beans, and coffee with sugar. Diets of well-to-do children were considerably more varied with good representation from all major food groups. Anthropometric assessment indicated that migrant worker children had values for weight and triceps skinfold thickness that were low compared to American standards. Values for height, arm circumference, and arm muscle circumference were average compared to American standards. Well-to-do children exceeded American standards for all anthropometric parameters measured. Biochemical investigations of protein and iron status were also conducted. Serum total protein and albumin levels were normal in most subjects in both groups. However, many migrant worker, children had low values for hematocrit, serum iron, and transferrin saturation. Most well-to-do children had normal values for these parameters. Hemoglobin levels were adequate in most subjects. Physical work performance was found to be impaired in migrant worker children. Exercise heart rates and post-exercise blood lactic acid levels in response to a standardized bicycle-ergometer work test were significantly higher in migrant worker compared to wel1-to-do children. In addition, a significant correlation was found between anthropometric indicators of nutritional status and parameters of physical work performance. Finally, socio-economic and ecological assessment indicated that the living conditions of migrant worker children were impoverished and unsanitary. This probably aggravated health problems such as infections that were found to occur among these children. Well-to-do children did not share these conditions. / Land and Food Systems, Faculty of / Graduate