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Home Away Home: Adjustment Experience of Bangladeshi Immigrants in the Netherlands

Md. Kazi S. Farid
Assistant Professor
Department of Rural Sociology, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh E-mail: ksfarid@gmail.com

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

Adjustment into a new culture is of crucial importance for the immigrants to lead a meaningful life in that culture. The present study investigates the adjustment experiences of Bangladeshi immigrants in the Netherlands by exploring and describing the nature of psychological, socio-cultural, and economic adjustment. Participants were 14 Bangladeshi immigrants aged between 29 and 62 years who were selected through snowball sampling technique, were directly or indirectly related with restaurant business and had been residing in the Netherlands for at least five years. A qualitative approach to data collection and analysis was employed in order to get insights from the study participants. For collecting data, in-depth interviews were conducted among the study participants. Data analysis was done with the use of MAXQDA qualitative data analysis software. Examination of the interview transcripts revealed that the immigrants are psychologically happy with their well-being, as almost all of their expectations have been fulfilled despite some problems of cultural differences. Bangladeshi immigrants maintain socio-cultural relationship with the people sufficient to lead normal daily lives as they do hardly face any problem. However, there interaction with Dutch is limited. Though they are not completely happy with their busy lives in the Netherlands, they feel better here compared to Bangladesh. They are economically adjusted because of the fulfilment of their economic expectations. Several practical implications were elicited from the research including a need for programmes that promote immigrants’ integration with the mainstream of the Dutch society by encouraging the broadening of social relationship.

Keywords: Socio-cultural adjustment, Psychological adjustment, Economic adjustment, Bangladeshi immigrants

Location: Bangladeshi immigrants and Netherlands

Start Date: 00-00-2010

End Date: 00-00-2012

Program Area: Socio-economic and Policy

Non-commodity: Credit

Objectives:

To explore and describe the nature of adjustment of Bangladeshi immigrants in the Netherlands based on psychological adjustment, socio-cultural adjustment, and economic adjustment.

Methodology:

A qualitative research design was adopted in the year 2010-2012 of this study in order to explore and describe the nature of adjustment of immigrants. Population of the present study consisted of the immigrants of Bangladesh-origin who had been living in the Netherlands for at least five years, and are directly or indirectly related to the restaurant business. Primarily immigrant communities were identified through personal communication. A snowball sampling technique was adopted to select the participant for the current study. Firstly, contact was made with the potential participants. A list of participants who wished to participate in the study was made then. Twenty immigrants were identified through snowball. All the immigrants are Muslim. Among them, 18 immigrants either own or work in the restaurant of whom two refused to participate in the study. Among the rest 16 participants, data were collected from 14 immigrants, which was determined based on data saturation. Therefore, participants of this study are 14 Bangladeshi immigrants who have immigration status eight (8) of whom are the owner of the restaurant and the other six (6) works in the restaurant. There are two immigrants aged less than 30 years, six are between 30-45 years, five are 46-60 years category and the rest one is more than 60 years. The youngest participant is 29 years old and the age of oldest participant is 62 years. The participants migrated to the Netherlands at young age. 11 participants migrated from 20 to 30 years of age, two participants were less than 20 years and another one was higher than 30, with a lowest of 19 and highest of 37. The highest 6 of the participants completed more than 14 years of schooling followed by four from 10 to 12 years and two each for lower than 10 years and from 13-14 years of schooling, respectively. Moreover, the lowest and highest years of schooling completed by the study participants are 6 and 17 years. Among the 14 participants, 11 are married and the rest have official Dutch girl friend. One participant’s wife is Dutch citizen and another one is Philippines. Almost all of them have one or two children except the participants those have girl friends.In-depth interviews were conducted with the participants to collect necessary data at their convenient. Participants were formally interviewed in a single sitting lasted between 40 and 60 minutes depending on the situation of the respective interview. Interviews was conducted in Bengali, the mother tongue of Bangladeshi, and tape-recorded with the prior consent of the participants. All recorded interviews were turned into verbatim transcripts. The transcription was produced in Bengali and then translated into English by the researcher himself. All identifiers from the transcripts were then removed in order to preserve the anonymity of the participants. After data preparation, a set of deductive codes (based on interview guide and literature review), inductive codes (issues raised by the participants) and in-vivo codes (specific phrases and metaphors used by participants) was produced. Then coding was done by labelling all the data using all listed codes through careful reading and then identifying sections of data relevant to each code. A thick description of each code was developed through careful reading of texts of each code. A cross-case comparison of codes was made to identify patterns and associations in the data. and to clarify issues that make each issue or code distinct from others. Then codes with similar characteristics were identified and grouped into meaningful categories. Concepts were then made based on the relationships between the categories. These concepts were developed taking into consideration of specific research questions. Data were analyzed with the use of MAXQDA qualitative data analysis software. Ethical issues are very much important in doing socio-demographic research (Hennink et al., 2011), which were considered carefully in this study. The participation in the research process was voluntary. The process of data collection was done based on informed consent of the respondents. They were fully informed about the objectives and the procedure involved in the present research. Assurance was also given to the participants that the individual information will not be presented in the paper. Data were collected in such a manner so that the participants are not mentally or psychologically injured during interview. Probing during interview was used in such way that will not injure respondents’ self-esteem. The privacy of the participants was ensured properly. They were assured that identifying information will not be made available to anyone and their information will remain confidential t

Source of Information: J. Bangladesh Agril. Univ. 12(2): 345–350, 2014, ISSN 1810-3030

Article Link (Online Journal):

Funding Source:

Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

This study examines the nature of psychological, socio-cultural, and economic adjustment of the Bangladeshi immigrants. Participants have positive perceptions about their well-being, i.e., they feel that they are in better off condition now compared to their lives in Bangladesh. Feeling of being foreigner is not so strong for the Bangladeshi immigrants. However, they feel that they are being discriminated in very few cases. Cultural distances become a problem for their children in some instances. What is important is that they feel that their expectations have been fulfilled in almost all cases and they are very much satisfied with their present life. Though the participants were passing very busy life, they are happy with the way they lead their lives in the Netherlands as they are in general not facing any problem. Generally, they are maintaining good relationship with all types of people in the Dutch society, though their interaction is limited with the Dutch in some cases. Therefore, despite a few limitations, Bangladeshi immigrants are more or less adjusted from socio-cultural point of view. Immigrants of Bangladesh, however, are adjusted economically more than that of psychological and socio-cultural adjustment. Their economic expectations have been fulfilled in almost all cases. They are economically independent and they are very much satisfied with their economic position. In conclusion it can be said that economic consideration is most important for Bangladeshi immigrants. The extent of maintaining social relationship is not so important for them. Their psychological well-being is mainly related with their economic well-being. It seems that they can compensate their socio-cultural life in the pursuit of economic well-being. Based on the discussion of the results, this study recommends taking effective initiatives to improve the community relationship of the immigrants, broadcasting the contributions of the immigrants through mass media so that the Dutch think positively about immigrants and combating discrimination by ensuring equal rights and equal opportunities for everyone, irrespective of ethnic and racial origin.

Knowledge Management: Journal