Working for a better future: Social mobility beliefs and expectations of Filipino migrant workers in Macau

Abstract

Objective: Household theory of labour migration assumes that the decision to work in another country is a family's strategy to improve prospects of socio-economic mobility. We inquired into the social cognitive processes associated with this goal by applying model of pathways to socio-economic mobility, but extending the types of causal conceptions related to social mobility that are considered important in the Philippine context. Method: We surveyed 246 Filipino migrant workers in Macau, who answered questions about perceptions of the socio-economic status of their family (before they worked abroad, presently, and 10 years after), socio-economic mobility causal conceptions (merit, luck, faith in God, social networks), and goal-attainment strategies (goal engagement, goal disengagement). Results: Migrant workers expect improved socio-economic status of their families compared to before, and they expect further improvement after 10 years. They endorsed faith in God and meritocracy as important causal factors to mobility. Path analysis indicated two pathways to socio-economic mobility expectations: (1) engagement-promoting pathway-involving faith in God and meritocracy as causal conceptions related to goal engagement, and higher socio-economic mobility expectations and (2) disengagement-promoting pathway-involving luck as causal conception related to goal disengagement, and lower socio-economic mobility expectations. Conclusion: Although working abroad is fraught with uncertainties, Filipino migrant workers aspire for upward socio-economic mobility for their families, which they seek to attain by working hard and persistence, which in turn relate to causal conceptions of mobility that involve controllable factors.

The Relationship Between Family Socioeconomic Status and Career Outcomes: A Life History Perspective

“…For example, career exploration is related to perceived employability (Praskova et al, 2015) and job satisfaction upon graduation (Werbel, 2000). Similarly, empirical evidence supports the relationship between goal persistence and more rapid career progress, higher expectations of upward social mobility, and higher subjective well-being (Bernardo et al, 2018;Shane & Heckhausen, 2016). Following this, we expected that career exploration and persistence would be related to perceived person-job fit, which is one indicator of career success.…”

Goal pursuit during the three stages of the migration process

“…For the during-migration stage, both goal importance and goal commitment were identified as sources of well-being and adjustment. On the one hand, goal commitment and goal engagement may explain migrants' life prospects and migration success, as they motivate the individual to persist despite hardship (Bernardo et al, 2018;Zhou, 2014). On the other hand, goal commitment may contribute to goal conflict (Carrasco, 2010).…”

“…The final paper in this category relates to both goal structure and goal process and focuses on how people's beliefs regarding their skills and abilities impacts the realization of their goals. Bernardo, Clemente, and Wang (2018) hypothesized that Filipino international workers' reliance on their skills and abilities would result in an optimistic view of their future, namely increasing socioeconomic status expectations. The authors posited that workers who believe that their social standing is primarily determined by their personal qualities and feel that upward mobility is within their control are more likely to work persistently towards their goals, which in turn generates positive socioeconomic expectations.…”

The psychology of lay beliefs about economic mobility

“…For instance, adolescents from lower‐income families who strongly believe in economic mobility have higher academic self‐esteem, are more likely to persist in school, set higher educational aspirations for themselves, and achieve higher GPAs than their peers (Browman et al., 2017, 2019; Mugabe et al., 2016). More generally, the belief in economic mobility is associated with higher goal persistence (Bernardo et al., 2018), higher involvement in one's children's education (Zhang et al., 2020), and higher academic expectations from them (Ng et al., 2017). In contrast, weaker beliefs in mobility are associated with a low sense of personal control (Yoon & Kim, 2018), impulsive financial behavior (Kim & Jang, 2020; Szendrey & Fiala, 2018; Tabri et al., 2015; Yoon & Kim, 2016), increased risk‐taking (Weintraub et al., 2015), and diminished well‐being (Huang et al, 2017; Li et al., 2019).…”