Family Cohesion and Social Support: Protective Factors for Acculturation Stress Among Low-Acculturated Mexican Migrants

Abstract

International migration has significant effects on the lives of migrants, many resulting from the challenges of cultural adjustment they face in their country of destination. Cultural adjustment or acculturation often includes physical, psychological, spiritual, social, financial, linguistic, and familial adaptation. This process may produce an acculturative stress reaction arising from the psychological difficulties migrants experience as they adapt to unfamiliar social norms, customs, and institutions they encounter in a new cultural context. Protective factors and coping mechanisms may be present to help migrants manage acculturative stress. This study examines the relationship between acculturative stress and family cohesion and social support among low-acculturated Mexican migrants in Chicago. Specifically, the authors hypothesize that there will be a negative relationship between stress level and the measures of family cohesion and social support. Two models are presented. The first examines the relationship between the dependent variable, acculturative stress level, and the demographic and social characteristics of respondents. The second includes variables measuring family cohesion and social support, while also controlling for problems experienced relative to support. The results indicate that only a very small proportion of the total variance in acculturative stress is explained by demographic characteristics, yet the second model, which includes measures of family cohesion and social support accounts for almost 20% of the variance in acculturative stress scores. The results indicate that individuals who have greater levels of family engagement as well as individuals who have greater levels of family satisfaction have lower levels of acculturative stress.

Keywords:

• acculturation
• acculturative stress
• social support
• social networks
• immigration

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study was done in collaboration with the Mexican Consulate of Chicago and the Sistema Nacional para el Desarrollo Integral de la Familia (SNDIF), the Mexican federal government's principal agency for protecting the well-being of Mexicans and providing essential human services. Some of the questionnaire items used in this study come from the national SNDIF study of Mexican Family Dynamics (Diagnostico de la Familia), conducted in Mexico in June 2005. The study was supported by a generous grant from the Lois and Samuel Silberman Fund.