Immigration as a multiple-stressor situation: Stress and coping among immigrants from the former Soviet Union in Israel.

Abstract

The present study investigated the adaptation process of immigrants from the former Soviet Union in Israel as a multiple-stressor situation that involves cognitive appraisals and coping efforts. A sample of 301 new immigrants (residing in Israel three years or less), 67% women, 25 to 45 years old, completed inventories measuring cognitive appraisals of three major immigration stressors-employment, language, and housing difficulties-and the strategies used to cope with these demands. Level of distress (as indicated by depression and anxiety) was also assessed. The results show positive associations between cognitive appraisals of the various stressors, as well as between the coping strategies applied to them, indicating mutual influences between stressors in a multiple-stressor situation. In addition, an interaction between the appraisals of threat/loss of the three stressors predicted the respondents' distress level, supporting the potentiation model of coping with multiple stressors. Last, the findings support the notion of a stable coping style by showing especially high correlations between coping efforts with different stressors.

Growing Up Too Soon? Parentification Among Immigrant and Native Adolescents in Germany

“…For the immigrant adolescents, however, the question remains as to why this effect was not found. Most likely, partnership dissatisfaction of mothers simply is not a major stressor in migrant families, who have to cope with many other pressing challenges, such as language problems, employment, housing, discrimination, and cultural incompatibilities (Hernandez and Charney 1998;Titzmann et al 2011b;Yakhnich 2008). In line with this argument is the finding that the acculturation-related variables (i.e., language brokering) are better in predicting both types of parentification in the immigrant sample.…”

The Youth Village: A Multicultural Approach to Residential Education and Care for Immigrant Youth in Israel

“…Since the 1990s, Israeli immigration policies could serve as a good example for an integrative, culturally pluralistic model (Bardach, 2005;Eisikovits & Beck, 1990;Yakhnich, 2008). The policy has been based on three principles: cultural pluralism in integration, utilizing the socializing force of informal settings, and social transaction.…”

“This Is My Responsibility”: Parental Experience of Former Soviet Union Immigrant Parents in Israel

“…A wide range of life events may cause parental stress. Immigration, common in contemporary society, is one of these: it involves coping with multiple stressors, such as employment, language, housing problems (Yakhnich, 2008), and exposes the immigrants to high levels of mental and physical distress (Ritsner, Modai, & Ponizovsky, 2000).…”

“…These phenomena are generally attributed, at least in part, to changing parent-child relationships and the decreasing influence that immigrant parents have on their children (Mann, 2004;Horowitz & Brosh, 2011;Edelstein & BarHamburger , 2007;Yakhnich & Teichman, 2015). As immigrant families' adaptation involves coping with multiple stressors in various aspects of life, immigrant parents' psychological wellbeing, functioning, and ability to interact positively with their children may be challenged (Yakhnich, 2008). Some additional factors that potentially affect FSU immigrant families are generally low socio-economic status, increased divorce rates and large number of single-parent households, and loss of the support of grandparents who stayed in the FSU (Kosner, Roer-Strier, & Kurman, 2014).…”