Copyright is owned by the Author of the thesis.  Permission is given for 
a copy to be downloaded by an individual for the purpose of research and 
private study only.  The thesis may not be reproduced elsewhere without 
the permission of the Author. 
 



 

 

 

Work Experiences of Chinese Migrants: impact on 

family wellbeing 

 

A thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of 

 

 

 

 

Master of Business Studies 

in 

Human Resource Management 

 

 

 

at Massey University, Albany, 

New Zealand 

 

 

 

Hui Tian 

 

2019 



 

 

1 

Work Experiences of Chinese Migrants: impact on 

family wellbeing 

 

Abstract 

Immigration has rapidly increased throughout the world, especially from developing 

to developed countries. Through immigration, most people are searching for better 

career opportunities, better economic outcomes, and a pleasant environment. For a 

relatively long time, Australia, the United States of America, Canada, Europe, and 

New Zealand are ranked as the top popular destinations. 

New Zealand is renowned as a country of immigrants, and the numbers entering are 

increasing annually. While Europeans used to dominate the early waves of 

immigration, more recently, especially after the commencement of the points system 

for skilled migrants, more people are coming from Asian countries, such as China, 

Korea, Southeast Asia, and India.  

China, in particular, had been a significant contributor to the inflow of migrants to 

New Zealand. The Chinese workforce is becoming a critical part of the current labor 

market in New Zealand (Badkar &Tuya, 2010). Unlike many other Asian countries, 

those from mainland China do not have English as a key language, which has been 

the top barrier for Chinese migrants’ employment and settlement in New Zealand. 

Underemployment has become a collective experience for many Chinese migrants 

throughout New Zealand. 

The current study replicated a study that examined the work experiences of Asian 

immigrants in New Zealand (Sobrun-Maharaj, Rossen, & Kim, 2011), with some 

changes that have been made.  

To conduct this research, a 30-45mins qualitative semi-structured interview was 



 

 

2 

undertaken with each participant and were content analyzed. The results showed 

that a large portion of new Chinese migrants was experiencing underemployed or 

have the experience of being underemployed. The experience of underemployment 

has generated many negative effects on their psychological and physical health. 

Besides, those adverse effects may not only constraint on an individual level but also 

extend to their families and the social context of their families. However, many 

factors may have an impact on how people value and adjust to the status of 

underemployment, such as previous working experience, their motivation for 

immigration, which may either weaken or even eliminate those negative impacts. 

The current study hoped to get a whole picture of the impact of underemployment 

of new Chinese migrants in the Auckland labor market on their family wellbeing. It 

had provided significant implications for new migrants, employers, communities, 

government, and further researchers. Even though the underemployment of new 

migrants is not a new topic, there is still a broad-scale research agenda need to study. 

More rigorous design and complex models should be applied for future studies. 

Longitudinal research designs, as well as family studies, can also be designed to 

examine the broader and more prolonged effects of underemployment.  

Keywords: Chinese immigrants, underemployment, low income, talent waste, family 

well being 



 

 

3 

Table of Contents 

Abstract 

Chapter 1 Introduction 

Chapter 2 Literature Review 

1. Employment of skilled Chinese immigrants in Auckland, New Zealand 

2. Underemployment and low income  

3. Barriers to employment  

4. Consequences of underemployment 

5. Facilitators of better employment - Support 

6. Family wellbeing 

Chapter 3 Methodology 

1. Recruitment and sample 

2. Procedure 

3. Data analysis  

4. Ethics approval 

Chapter 4 Results and Discussion 

1. Value of work in life 

2. Motivation of immigration  

3. Education and qualification 

4. Employment 

5. Barriers and facilitators of employment  

6. Family well being 



 

 

4 

Chapter 5 Conclusion 

Implications 

Limitations  

References 

Appendix A: Semi-structured interview schedule 

Appendix B: Information sheet (English and Chinese) 

Appendix C: Consent form (English and Chinese) 

Appendix D: Human ethics notification 



 

 

5 

Chapter 1 Introduction 

Underemployment among immigrants, especially Asian immigrants (Slade, 2012), is a 

pervasive problem for immigrants receiving countries, such as the United States of 

America (De Jong & Madamba, 2001; Gordon, 2001; Wang & Lysenko, 2014), Europe, 

Canada (CLC, 2014; Laura & Mitchell, 2012; Maitra, 2017), Australia (Kler, Potia, & 

Shankar, 2018; Reid, 2012), New Zealand (Mace, 2004). This topic is drawing 

increasing attention during recent years. 

Landing in a new country, new immigrants are exposed to a different culture, and the 

working environment is even more diverse. They may experience considerable 

hardships in adapting to the new environment, especially in the early stage of 

immigration. Even though many skilled migrants possess valuable working 

experience and essential skills, there is still the challenge of many employment 

barriers in host country, such as low language proficiency, employment 

discrimination, lack of information and knowledge of the local labor market, lack of 

local connections, lack of local university education, shorter residency, and 

differences in working pattern, all of which may block their way to utilize their skills 

and find a comparable employment in the new host country.  

Although New Zealand’s points system has set basic requirements for skill 

immigration based on personal merits (including English level, education, age, 

working experience), aimed on ensuring that new migrants will experience fewer 

settlement problems and will find it easier to secure appropriate employment after 

their arrival, new Chinese migrants, who have been settled in New Zealand less than 

five years, still reported a remarkably high level of unemployment and 

underemployment (Abbott, Wong, Williams, Au, & Young, 1999).  

Underemployment, no matter in which form, low payment, providing too few hours, 

under-utilizing one’s skills, or any combination of the above three forms, can have 

negative effects on individuals, their families, organizations, surrounding 



 

 

6 

communities and even the whole society. For an individual, underemployment can 

lead to low job satisfaction (Lee, 2005; Nabi, 2003), a high individual perception of no 

work or unfulfilling work, bad work attitudes, a high intention to leave their jobs 

(Allen & van der Velden, 2001; Burke, 1997; Holtom et al., 2002; Maynard, Joseph, & 

Maynard, 2006; Maynard, Thorsteinson, et al., 2006; Wald, 2005 ), low income, low 

self-esteem, low confidence about themselves and their future, financial stress, poor 

psychological and physical health. Besides, it also has a profound influence on many 

aspects of an employees’ life, such as relationships with families (Le Espiritu, 1999) 

and friends. For the organization, a considerable number of previous studies have 

proved that a greater degree of person-job fit can lead to more positive work 

outcomes (Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman, & Johnson, 2005), which will eventually lead 

to overall positive organizational performance. Underemployment, on the other 

hand, will result in poor personal performance and low productivity, low morale in 

the work environment, broken psychological contracts between employees and the 

organization, which will eventually result in inferior organizational performance. 

Besides, skills underemployment is a waste of talent of human capital for the 

organization. Human capital, which is defined as the useful skills and knowledge 

individuals acquire to increase individual productivity and produce economic value 

(Merriman, 2017), is widely accepted as the top productive force. According to 

human capital theory, learning and experience directly increase workers’ productivity 

(Becker, 1993), which will eventually increase the overall productivity of the whole 

organization. If an employer can fully utilize the skills and experiences of migrant 

employees, this may greatly contribute to the overall performance of organizations. 

At the country level, an economy in which a large portion of people is working fewer 

hours and working without utilizing their skill, cannot be considered as an economy 

operating at full employment (Schulze & Dixon, 2014), and it is believed that the 

economy will get stuck when operating below full employment. For immigrants 

receiving countries, such as New Zealand, one of the main reasons for a skilled 

migrant immigration scheme is to attract skilled human capital to contribute to the 



 

 

7 

economic development of the country. Underemployment among immigrants 

defeats this purpose, as the talent of skilled migrants has been wasted due to the 

inability to find commensurate employment. Those underemployed migrants are 

believed to present a remarkable pool of untapped labor that can be better matched 

to their skills, training, and experience (Bonnal, 2009). 

Underemployment among immigrants is not a new topic, especially among Asian 

immigrants in Western countries (Gordon, 2001). There are many articles about 

underemployment among immigrants (Tu, Zhou, Wong, & Okazaki, 2018), mainly 

covering four primary fields on investing underemployment, from the perspective of 

management (individual and organizational outcomes), economy (underutilization of 

labour talent and its impact on income), sociology (society and social structure) and 

psychology ( health and community effects )(McKee-Ryan & Harvey, 2011). The 

economic performance and economic wellbeing resulting from the 

underemployment of immigrants has drawn much more attention compared with the 

impact on family wellbeing (Chiswick & Sullivan, 1995; Massey, Goldring, & Durand, 

1994; Nee, Sanders, & Sernau, 1994). However, these different research perspectives 

on the economic performance of immigrants provide the context for this present 

study.  

Most studies on this topics were conducted in the United States of America, Canada 

(CLC, 2014; Wald, 2005), Australia, and Europe. However, a few studies have focused 

on the New Zealand labor market. The current study addressed the gap through an 

in-depth examination of Chinese immigrants in New Zealand labor market. Further, in 

New Zealand context, much research attention has been put on Chinese immigrants 

from Hong Kong and Taiwan (Beal, 2001; Ho, 2002), as they accounted for a large 

number of early settlers, while other research has been undertaken on Chinese 

immigrants only from mainland China, recognizing that they are a major source of 

migrants. However, migrants from different parts of the world have different culture 

and may experience different levels of underemployment (Schulze & Dixon, 2014). 



 

 

8 

According to previous cross-cultural research, different values and beliefs may result 

in differences in the relationships among antecedents, consequences, and 

work-family conflict (Korabik, Lero, & Ayman, 2003).  

The current research examines the impact of the working experience of new Chinese 

migrants on their family wellbeing, intending to encourage new migrants, 

organizations and the government, to have a better understanding of the post-arrival 

adjustment and employment situation of skilled Chinese migrants. Additionally, an 

analysis of the barriers and facilitators of employment may provide migrants, 

organizations, and government ideas on how to support new migrants to secure 

commensurate jobs in New Zealand, aiming to improve their employment status and 

thereby family the wellbeing.  



 

 

9 

Chapter 2 Literature Review 

1. Employment of skilled Chinese immigrants in Auckland, New Zealand 

1.1 Chinese migrants in New Zealand 

China was, for many centuries, a closed country, with limitations on the inflow of 

visitors, and more importantly, limits on the migration of citizens (Mohanty, 2018). 

However, from the late 1990s, due to social transformation and economic 

development in China, an international movement began to flourish. Chinese people 

started to move to developed countries to search for more business and life 

opportunities. North America and Australia were the two most popular destinations 

at that time (Skeldon, 2004).  

From the mid-1990s, after the immigration policy of New Zealand changed to be 

based on personal merit rather than nationality or ethnicity, and a points system was 

introduced, a large number of well-educated and skilled people immigrated to New 

Zealand from Asia (Henderson, 2002; Spoonley & Bedford, 2012), especially from 

India and China (illustrated in Figure 1).  

 



 

 

10 

Figure 1 Top source countries of annual permanent and long-term net migration 

arrivals of non–New Zealand citizens, 1979/80–2016/17 

 

* Note: Includes only permanent and long-term migrants for whom the source 

country was stated.                       *Source: StatsNZ. 

The new immigration policy favor people with excellent English language proficiency, 

specialist skills, formal educational qualification, transnational education, and work 

experience (Liu, 2004; Wang & Thorns, 2009). The points system, which selects 

immigrants based on education, and general human capital (Maani & Chen, 2012; 

Wang, 2007), was introduced to attract quality immigrants from all over the world to 

assist New Zealand to get valuable human capital for economic development (Wang 

& Thorns, 2009). Skilled migrants under the points system were expected to 

contribute to the economic and social development of New Zealand with their talent, 

knowledge, and skills. The points system was designed with taking into consideration 

of age, character, education, experience, health condition, English level, and 

employability, to make sure that new immigrants can settle into New Zealand quickly 

and smoothly. Further, it was also widely accepted that highly educated immigrants 

could integrate more easily into the host country over the longer term when 

compared with lower-skilled immigrants (Banerjee, Verma, & Zhang, 2018). The new 



 

 

11 

immigration policy, therefore, was encouraging skilled immigration and has resulted 

in a steady flow of skilled immigrants over those years (Maani & Chen, 2012). It was 

predicted that in future years, if there are no dramatic changes in immigration policy, 

the Asian population will grow at three times the rate of the total population to 2026, 

reaching about 790,000 (Friesen, 2015). 

Auckland, the economic center of New Zealand, is the city most new migrants arrived 

first (Wang, 2018) and is the most popular destination (MBIE, 2018) (illustrated in 

Figure 2 and 3), especially for skilled migrant category principal applicants.  

Figure 2 Net permanent and long-term migrants per 1,000 resident population by 

New Zealand region, 2016/17 

 

*Source: StatsNZ resident population estimates as at 30 June 2017. 



 

 

12 

Figure 3 Top five regions of skilled employment for Skilled Migrant Category principal 

applicants, 2011/12–2016/17 

 

*Note: These principal applicants were awarded points for a job or job offer and 

specified a region of employment.                                                                                                                                                                   

*Source: MBIE. 

According to StatsNZ in 2017 (illustrated in Figures 3), almost 50% of applicants 

under the skilled migrant category chose Auckland as their destination. According to 

the 1991 census, over half of the country’s 44,793 Chinese resided in Auckland. As 

the largest city in New Zealand, Auckland has a population of 1,695,900 (June 2018), 

which is almost one-third of the New Zealand population (Subnational population 

estimates, 2018). It also has the highest percentage of immigrants compared with 

other regions (Maani & Chen, 2012). New immigrants come to New Zealand for 

better education opportunities for both themselves and their children, a better job 

market, a more relaxed lifestyle and a better natural environment (Ip, 2011; Liu, 

2004). Auckland is a city that enjoys both modern facilities and a pleasant natural 

environment, which provides all the components pursued by migrants from all over 

the world. As the major economic and financial center, most of the international and 

national enterprises are based in Auckland; this enables high skilled immigrants to 



 

 

13 

get more opportunities to get the jobs commensurate with their education and skill 

level.  

Auckland enjoys a mild climate and a purely natural environment. It has many 

educational opportunities, leisure facilities, and activities. Auckland has ranked 3rd of 

215 cities for quality of life (The World’s Best, 2015). Auckland has more to-ranking 

education institutions than other regions, including primary and secondary schools, 

tertiary institutions, colleges, and universities. Three of the eight New Zealand 

universities are located in Auckland, including Massey University, Auckland University, 

and Auckland University of Technology, which attract a large number of international 

students from all over the world every year. All those students who come to New 

Zealand to pursue higher education will become a potential source of future 

immigrants. According to the “2013 Census" (2013), 86.7% of Chinese who live in 

New Zealand, aged 1five years and over, had a formal qualification, and 69% of 

Chinese live in the Auckland region.  

1.2 Employment of Chinese migrants in New Zealand labor market 

Chinese immigrants are one of the top sources of New Zealand’s immigration intake 

(Wang, 2016), and are ranked as the second largest group of overseas-born residents 

in 2013 (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, 2013). Most immigrants 

are from relatively wealthy and well-established middle-class families in China, and 

they usually obtain residence in New Zealand as skilled or business immigrants 

(Wang, 2016).  

New Zealand is famous for its balanced lifestyle; it was ranked second in the world for 

work-life balance in HSBC’s 2019 Expat Explorer survey (HSBC Expat, 2019). 

Compared with pursuing career development, the reasons why many Chinese people 

come to New Zealand can attribute to educational opportunities for their children, 

relaxed Western lifestyle, and better nature environment (Ho, 2015; Ip 2011; Lewin 

et al., 2011; Liu, 2004). However, due to the significant financial and psychological 

stress during the early settlement stage, the harsh reality for many new migrants is 



 

 

14 

that they have to find a job to make money to at least survive and to build their 

social status in new host country (Ho, Meares, Peace, & Spoonley, 2010). The 

consequence for many is that their work may conflict with their family life (Ho, 

Meares, Peace, & Spoonley, 2010).  

Even though skilled Chinese migrants are always highly educated, with valuable 

working experience, they are reportedly not doing well in the New Zealand labor 

market, marked with a high unemployment and underemployment rate. Besides, 

they are always featured with low income, which cannot be matched with their 

education level and previous working experience.  

Many of them are working in poorly paying and low skill occupations, such as 

restaurants and hotels, real estate services, apparel production (Liu, 2004). There are 

many barriers for Chinese migrants to obtain or secure stable and decent 

employment in the New Zealand labor market, such as unsatisfactory English 

proficiency, cultural difference, and workplace discrimination, lack of local social 

connections, and knowledge of the local labor market. One direct and obvious result 

of underemployment is either low or unstable income. It is reported that Chinese 

migrants in New Zealand have a much lower median income than the national 

average, even though they are one of the best-educated group in New Zealand 

(Wang, 2018).  

Many Chinese migrants are reported struggling with financial pressure and degraded 

social status (Wang, 2018). As it is hard for them to get better employment, common 

ways for them to realize an increase in income are through self-employment (Ho, 

2015), doing longer working hours and taking multiple jobs.  

However, the overall economic outcome of Chinese migrants is still relatively poor, 

especially in the early settlement stage (Liu, 2010). 



 

 

15 

2. Underemployment and low income  

2.1 Definition and forms of underemployment 

Underemployment differs from unemployment in that a person is working, but on a 

job-education mismatching position (TIEDE, 2008), marked with working in a job that 

is below employees’ full working capacity. It happens when people are employed in 

jobs which are substandard relative to their goals and expectations (Maynard & 

Feldman, 2011). Those years underemployment has drawn more and more attention 

worldwide, and the trends consistently showed that underemployment would 

become more prevalent in the future (McKee-Ryan & Harvey, 2011). According to a 

Gallup report in 2010, unemployment dropped a little bit. Underemployment 

increased to 9.7% in the meantime (Jacobe, 2010). One recent research showed that 

with the increase of average education of workers in the United States (Ng & 

Feldman, 2009), over-qualification was increasing in a positive, linear trend (Vaisey, 

2006), which has led to a higher possibility of underemployment.  

The experience of underemployed employees tends to be more closing to the 

experience of unemployed employees than those who are adequately employed 

(Cassidy & Wright, 2008; Wilkins, 2007). Even though they have jobs, their 

employment provides them nothing except survival income. Jobs for them are only a 

way to maintain life-hood, not a career to develop. There are mainly three kinds of 

underemployment, skill underemployment, income underemployment, and hour 

underemployment, and sometimes a combination of the above two or three kinds. 

Hour underemployment is also called visible underemployment, while skill and 

income underemployment are also called invisible underemployment (Amadeo, 

2012). Skill underemployment refers to people who are highly educated workers in 

low skill jobs (Batalova, Fix, & Bachmeier, 2016). In other words, there is a disparity 

between educations in relation to occupation. One European study found that half of 

its sample of higher education workers were either overqualified or employed 

outside their field of study (Allen & van der Velden, 2001). Income underemployment 



 

 

16 

means people’s current wages are significantly lower than their previous jobs. Under 

income underemployment, employees are sometimes working outside the field in 

which they are educated or trained; sometimes even in their study fields, they are 

always having more significant skills or working experience than the requirement of 

their given jobs. This could include, for example, a registered accountant working as a 

cashier at the supermarket. Hour underemployment happens when people cannot 

work as many hours as they want, or they can only obtain temporary jobs when they 

desire permanent employment. Sometimes, to make ends met, they have to take 

multiple jobs. The United States of America Bureau of Labor Statistics (2011) 

reported that 8.8 million workers were forced to work part-time while they preferred  

full-time employment. According to Stats NZ (2018), in 2017, 20.6% of part-time 

workers in New Zealand wanted and were available to work more hours, and 65% of 

those hours underemployed workers wished to move into full-time jobs (Broughton, 

2018). In New Zealand, the appearance of flexible working arrangement has made 

work arrangement to a continuum of unemployment and part-time, casual, and 

full-time employment (Pocock, Buchanan, & Campbell, 2004), people have to accept 

those nonstandard work arrangement to at least secure their jobs, without any other 

choice (Winefield, 2002). Involuntary part-time or casual work can cause hour 

underemployment, which is prevailing around New Zealand. A study conducted by 

Maynard, Thorsteinson and Parfyonova in 2006 demonstrated that involuntary 

part-time workers were obviously less satisfied with work, payment, relations with 

coworkers, and they were also less effective and committed to their organization.  

2.2 Impacts of underemployment  

Underemployment is a pervasive problem; it has a serious impact on individuals, 

families, organizations, and even the whole society.  

For an individual, underemployed workers hold more negative work attitudes and 

have low job satisfaction levels. They have a higher intention to leave their jobs 

(Feldman, 1996), and they have poor psychological and physical health (Maynard 



 

 

17 

ANTECEDENTS 

Economic Factors 

Job Type 

Personal Characteristics 

Demographic 

Characteristics 

Career History 

Job Search Strategies 

Employee Experience, 

Characteristics, & Traits 

Personal Work Preferences 

OUTCOMES 

Job Outcomes 

Job Attitudes 

Quality of Reemployment 

In-/extra-role Job 

Performance 

Intention to Quit/ Turnover 

Career Outcomes 

Career Attitudes 

Career Outcomes 

Personal Outcomes 

Psychological wellbeing 

Family & Social Relationships 

&Feldman, 2011). The consequence of underemployment will extend to the social 

world in which he or she participates. It can put a severe strain on the partner 

relationships. Children will also be affected by parents’ underemployment status. For 

example, a reduction in income caused by underemployment will limit their access to 

certain activities with friends, new books, and new stationery or clothes. Further, the 

negative consequence of underemployment may also move beyond one’s family to 

one’s relatives, friends, and can increase social isolation. For organizations, people 

with low satisfaction levels are less likely to fully engage in their job and contribute 

great effort to organizational performance. Consequently, organizational 

performance will suffer. When underemployment spreads around a community, then 

the whole community will be affected. 

In the theoretical approaches to underemployment (McKee-Ryan & Harvey, 2011), 

McKee-Ryan and Harvey listed many outcomes caused by underemployment 

(illustrated in Figure 4), covering job outcomes, career outcomes, and personal 

outcomes. 

Figure 4 Theoretical Approaches to Underemployment (McKee-Ryan & Harvey, 2011) 

UNDEREMPLOYMENT 

Pay/Hierarchical 

Underemployment 

Hours Underemployment 

Work-status Congruence 

Over education 

Job Field 

Underemployment 

Skill Underutilization 

Perceived Over 

qualification 

Relative Deprivation 



 

 

18 

2.3 Underemployment among migrants 

Immigrants are a particular group who is much likely to experience 

underemployment (Maynard & Feldman, 2011), mainly due to the systemic issues of 

skill and knowledge transferability and recognition (TIEDE, 2008).  

Countries of immigration are supposed to benefit a lot from an influx of skilled 

workers, as they are the important sources of human capital (Mountford, 1997; Vidal, 

1998), which is considered to be the top productivity of a country (Iredale, 2004). 

However, many studies have shown that many immigrants are unsuccessful in 

obtaining jobs in their preferred fields (Iredale, 2004; Arbeit & Warren, 2013) in host 

countries; they are always working in occupations underusing their experience, 

training, and skills.  

In New Zealand, points system in New Zealand immigration policy has set basic 

requirements for skill immigration, aimed at making sure that new skilled immigrants 

will not or less likely to experience significant settlement problems and will be much 

easier to get employment. According to points system, skill immigrants should have 

sufficient skill to work, good working experience which makes them easier to get into 

new jobs in New Zealand, recognized qualification keeping them qualified for their 

jobs, a valid job offer showing that they have already gotten a job matching their 

qualification, and they are in labor age to work. However, even though a valid job 

offer is almost compulsory for the application of skilled migrant from 2004, a report 

from Department of Labor at 2009 still showed that employment rates were even 

lower for new Asian immigrants who have been in New Zealand less than five years, 

which showed that many Asian failed to secure their jobs in the early stage of their 

immigration.  

2.4 Low income 

One common consequence of all forms of underemployment is low income. Under 

skill underemployment, people’s skills cannot be fully utilized, so their payments are 



 

 

19 

always much lower than skilled employment, which means that there is a significant 

wage gap by their level of education.  

In the Wellington labor market, 42% of employed Asian migrants had a University 

degree, while only 25% of total employed earned more than $50,000 per year. The 

status is even more pronounced for migrants who have been in New Zealand for less 

than five years (Schulze & Dixon, 2014).  

Under income underemployment, people cannot get the payment as before, so they 

are always struggling with financial stress; they need to control their budgets within 

the new reduced income. Under hour underemployment, employees cannot work as 

many hours as they want, and their payments always depend on how many hours 

they work, which means they cannot get the payment they need. The situation is 

even worse for casual employees, as they cannot predict income in advance, which 

may make them passive on arranging their time and budgets. To meet their ends, 

people under hour underemployment always have to take multiple jobs to get 

enough money. Besides, hour underemployed employees always do not have any 

other benefits compared with permanent employees, such as paid sick leave, paid 

annual leave, medical insurance, allowance, annual bonus.  

Low income can lead to many negative consequences, which include not only 

financial stress, but also great psychology and financial stress for both employees 

themselves and their families.  

2.5 Talent waste 

Underemployment, especially skill underemployment, will lead to talent waste. 

Talent waste, also known as brain waste, is always caused by the mismatching of job 

and education; it is a common consequence of skill underemployment. 

There are mainly three kinds of job-skill mismatch, vertical mismatch, horizontal 

mismatch, and full mismatch (Banerjee, Verma, & Zhang, 2018). A vertical mismatch 

means that someone can work in the sector related to their education, but at a lower 



 

 

20 

level than their education level (Mahuteau, Mavromaras, Sloane, & Wei, 2014). 

According to Leuven and Oosterbeek (2011), almost 30% of workers were 

over-educated in the global labor market. A Horizontal mismatch refers to someone 

who cannot find a job related to their field of study. A full mismatch is a combination 

of horizontal and vertical mismatch. All those three kinds of mismatch are much 

likely to happen among immigrants, especially in the early stage of immigration. The 

result of talent waste is a high level of skill and knowledge under-utilization (Batalova, 

Fix, & Bachmeier, 2016), it is a great waste for not only employees themselves, but 

also the organizations and even the whole society.  

Talent waste and its impact on life and job satisfaction are always a concern in 

migration literature (Al Ariss, Cascio, & Paauwe, 2014). Talent waste is considered to 

have a significant negative impact on workers, employers, and the whole society 

(Mahuteau et al., 2014). 

In terms of the talent waste of immigrants, it mostly refers to the employment of 

skilled immigrants in unskilled jobs (Liversage, 2009), such as accountants work as 

cashiers, doctors work as taxi drivers, and engineers work as builders. Previous 

literature found that talent waste among migrants was a common phenomenon 

throughout the world. In a study examined the experience of Polish immigrants 

working in the Irish labor market, researchers found that many immigrants worked in 

jobs that were incommensurate with their qualifications and previous working 

experience (Pearson, Hammond, Heffernan, & Turner, 2012). A study on skilled 

immigrants in Canada also showed that immigrants were more likely to experience 

job-education mismatch than native-born Canadians (Banerjee, Verma, & Zhang, 

2018). Skill mismatched employment is a great waste of migrants’ talent for 

employees and human capital for employers, which will lead to both inferior personal 

performance and organizational performance. 

Many immigrants failed to integrate into their preferred sector of the abor market in 

host countries, which was considered to be the first step to fully realize the value of 



 

 

21 

skilled immigrants (Yoshida & Smith, 2005). Failure to work in the field of study will 

cause a horizontal job-education mismatch. Even though some immigrants have the 

opportunities to work in the area they have studied, they are forced to work in jobs 

below their skill and education level, which is considered to be a vertical mismatch. 

One main reason for vertical mismatch among immigrants is that employers in the 

host country prefer to hire workers with more education than the job requires, 

because they have concerns about the transferability and applicability of overseas 

education and work experience. A full mismatch is also common among new 

immigrants. As at the early settlement stage, they have quite few knowledge about 

local labor market and have few local social networks, which makes it less likely for 

them to find a job matching their education; meanwhile, they always face high 

financial stress at the early stage, such as housing, settlement expenses, and 

education expenses. They sometimes, as a last resort, have to accept a low-level job 

and to fill in positions as soon as possible, which may not only unrelated to their 

education but also earn a lower wage than they potentially could, to at least survive 

in the new host country.  

Those kinds of survival employment will not only lead to an enormous waste of 

talent of migrants temporarily but can also have a serious effect on their access to 

come back to the right career track for and may lead to long term underemployment 

in the host country. 

3. Barriers to employment  

There are many barriers for new migrants to get commensurate employment, 

especially at the early settlement stage.  

One of the top barriers is the absence of location-specific capital, such as local 

networks, sufficient language skills, and local resources and local market-specific 

skills (Da Vanzo, 1981). In New Zealand, even though points system has required that 

a new immigrant should have recognized qualifications, skilled work experience and 

even employment agreements (New Zealand Immigration, 2017), which should make 



 

 

22 

it easier for new migrants to settle smoothly and successfully in New Zealand, but the 

reality was proved to be quite different, especially for immigrants who were from 

non-English speaking background (Henderson, 2002), such as mainland China.  

There are many barriers to the employment and settlement of Chinese immigrants in 

New Zealand, including sufficient English skills, cultural differences, employment 

discrimination, lack of knowledge of the New Zealand labor market, and local social 

networks.  

3.1 Sufficient language skills 

Language was widely accepted to be the top barrier of employment for immigrants 

and lack of fluency in English is considered to be a key labor market disadvantage (Liu, 

2004; Park, 1999; Schulze & Dixon, 2014). 

Proficiency in the language of the host country is considered to be the key factor in 

integration into host country (Esser, 2006; Henderson, 2002), as language is 

important both as a medium for daily communication, and to get a position in the 

new labor market (Esser, 2006). Improved language proficiency may help migrants 

avoid interpersonal conflict and sort out the conflict effectively (Shang, O'Driscoll, & 

Roche, 2016). It has been proved that fluency and literacy in the host-country 

language are strongly related to workplace success (Batalova, Fix, & Bachmeier, 

2016). Wagner and Childs (2006) demonstrated that immigrants with good host 

country language proficiency enjoyed a significantly higher level of employment rates 

than those who were not. 

In New Zealand, even though the points system has set a requirement for applicants’ 

English level, it seems that it cannot reach the predicted expectation, as new 

immigrants still have problems with even daily communication with local people in 

English, not mention about in workplace. In many Asian countries, such as China, 

Korea, Japan, English has been taught as a language of educational instruction, even 

though people can pass the English test, it does not mean that they have the actual 



 

 

23 

ability to speak it fluently in real daily life same as English native speakers (Nunan, 

2003).  

The new changes on New Zealand immigration policy happened from 12 October 

2017 has become stricter for the proof of English level, it canceled a variety of 

alternative pieces of evidence of English language ability in place of an IELTS score. 

Besides, for immigrants who are invited to apply after 12 October, English evidence 

requirements will also be applied to their partner and any dependent children over 

the age of 16 (New Zealand Immigration, 2017). The reason for those changes is to 

ensure high consistency in the English level of skilled migrants and their families as 

well, thereby ensuring they can all settle down well after arrival, enjoy their new lives 

in New Zealand and contribute positively to New Zealand labor market. 

3.2 Cultural difference 

Landing a new country, immigrants are exposed to a different new culture and 

workplace environments are even more diverse (Shang, O’Driscoll, & Roche, 2018).  

Chinese migrants in New Zealand may experience an exceptional hardship in 

adapting to the new environment (Liu, 2004), as the cultural norms and expectations 

of both Chinese and New Zealand will exert influence on new Chinese migrants. They 

are at a high level of lacking understanding of both the social and work culture in 

New Zealand, which may cause significant workplace stress for them (Lueck & Wilson, 

2010).  

The larger the culture distance, the more difficult it is for new immigrants to adjust to 

the new culture in the host country (Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010). This is the 

case of Chinese immigrants in New Zealand. Chinese has a collective culture. 

However, when they come to New Zealand, they will have to learn to adjust to New 

Zealand’s predominantly individualistic culture. In host countries, Chinese migrants 

usually maintain their own culture in family life (Li, Hodgetts, & Sonn, 2014), such as 

speaking Chinese at home, accessing Chinese news. Besides, most Chinese in New 

Zealand tend to attach themselves tightly to the Chinese community in New Zealand, 



 

 

24 

because of their great sense of community (Li et al., 2014). However, at the 

workplace, especially in an organization dominated mostly by local people, they have 

to conform to norms and values of New Zealand (Berry, 2002). This frequency 

conversion will result in the delay of adjustment to the new culture.  

Different cultures will generate different organizational behaviors in the workplace 

and may easily lead to interpersonal conflict (Shang, O'Driscoll, & Roche, 2016). 

Chinese culture emphases collectivism and harmony. At the workplace, Chinese 

workers value group performance and prefer to avoid confrontation. While New 

Zealanders with an individualistic culture, they value personal performance and feel 

free to express their ideas openly. The difference in workplace behaviors will cause 

many significant problems, such as misunderstanding in the workplace, hard to 

involve in a new work environment. For example, Chinese people do not prefer to 

express their ideas openly (Fang, 2011), as they think it is a way to show off and they 

are afraid of being criticized, refuted and ridiculed; while under New Zealand culture, 

people are encouraged to talk freely and share opinions with others together. 

In recent years, one primary motivation for Chinese migrants taking on the path of 

migration to New Zealand is pursuing a different and relaxed Western lifestyle, but 

the reality is that it is tough for them to integrate into the Western culture here, the 

highly mixed cultures in New Zealand make the integration process even harder. To 

get involved in the new environment, Chinese migrants need first to overcome 

difference and developing intercultural relations with people from different cultures.  

3.3 Employment discrimination 

Theoretically, organizations should make employment decisions according to the 

human capital of individuals (Lepak & Snell, 1999). However, that is always not the 

case for migrants.  

According to Edwards (1979), immigration groups were always disadvantaged in 

gaining access to jobs in the same level with their education, and they were always 



 

 

25 

reported earning less than local people (Tienda & Lii, 1987), he believed that one key 

reason was that they were always to be subject to workplace discrimination. 

Furthermore, Immigrants also reported facing discrimination in obtaining 

professional and managerial positions, even though they were enough qualified or 

even overqualified (Gordon, 2001). With the growing amount of immigrants coming 

from different countries being received, the effect of workplace racism on access 

skilled professions and skill-matched work is becoming much more pronounced (Liu, 

2007; Reitz, 2005). 

Previous studies have found that employers did not rely on international 

qualifications, and they tended to place less value on foreign degrees. In New 

Zealand, Immigration policies decided whether international qualification can be 

recognized and how it should be recognized. However, many overseas qualifications 

cannot be identified or under-recognized according to immigration policies, while 

others are considered to be over recognized. Since every country has its education 

system, it is quite hard to set a perfect standard to measure the education level of 

different countries.  

According to human capital theory: additional education is rewarded in the labor 

market because employers value the skills and knowledge that come from higher 

educational, and they prefer to employ and pay more to employees who are more 

skilled (Frazie, 2002). However, in immigration countries, such as New Zealand, 

employers may not want to accept employees with international qualifications, as 

they do not know if their knowledge can be used under the New Zealand working 

environment, and their working experience is transferable in the new host country. It 

is widely accepted that skills acquired in one country transfer into higher productivity 

in that country (Arbeit & Warren, 2013). For example, an accountant educated in 

China can only fit the bureaucratic environment in China. His knowledge cannot be 

transferred entirely to the United States of America’s economy. Besides, as employers 

are less familiar with international institutions, they do not know whether foreign 



 

 

26 

education institutions impart the same quality and quantity of skills and knowledge 

as local educational institutions. New Zealand census data in 2013 showed that 

Chinese was one of the best-educated groups in New Zealand, with 33.7% having 

bachelor’s degrees or even higher. However, their advanced qualifications seem not 

give them an advantage in the labor market, as many of them still failed to be 

recognized (Wang, 2018) or discounted by New Zealand employers (Spoonley & 

Bedford, 2012).  

Employer discrimination has formed a big challenge for migrants in employment in 

the host country; their skills are much likely to be devalued compared to locally 

trained employees, even if their skills and education quality are equivalent or even 

better. Employers’ racial and cultural biases are also one crucial barrier for matched 

employment of new migrants (Guo, 2009). Wang (2018) stated that migrants, in 

general, were more likely to experience racial discrimination in the workplace than 

non-migrants. Furthermost, some employers even tend to judge or discriminate 

against job-hunters based on their accent or surname, which put Asian immigrants 

into unfavorable position and block their ways to employment at the very beginning 

(Meares, Ho, & Spoonley, 2010). 

3.4 Lack of knowledge of New Zealand labor market 

Lack of information and knowledge about the host country labor market is always 

considered to be a major challenge on arrival. Newcomers are always had quite few 

knowledge of the local labor market; they do not know the working partners of local 

people, the expectation of local employers, and the ways how their performance will 

be assessed. Lack of knowledge about the local labor market makes it even harder for 

immigrants to transfer their skills and overseas working experience into the host 

country’s labor market (Warman, Sweetman, & Goldmann, 2015).  

Wang and Thorns (2009) found that even though the labor market performance of 

newly arrived skilled immigrants was generally poor, some of them got significant 

improvement after five to ten years in New Zealand, which showed that newcomers 



 

 

27 

need time to adapt to New Zealand labor market. However, during those five to ten 

years, their performance may suffer. Organizations may be less likely to pay the cost 

of reduced performance during the early settlement stage, which has been a barrier 

for the employment of early migrants. 

Further, without local labor market knowledge, new immigrants may even do not 

know the right place to look for a job and the best way to get employment. They are 

much likely to feel that it is hard to transfer their home country working experience 

to a specific position in new host country, as the duty description on employment ad 

may be much different from their home country, which means that even for the 

same position, different countries may have different work content and different 

duty. Newcomers may feel confused about if they are qualified for the job or not. 

They even do not know what kind of CV host country may prefer, which makes it 

even hard for them to get opportunities for interviews. 

3.5 Lack of local social networks 

Lack of social networks has a significant impact on the integration of immigrants to a 

new host country (Soylu, 2007). Both direct and indirect social networks are crucial 

for new immigrants to settle in a new host country. Building local networks is very 

important for new migrants, as it is one of the most effective ways they can use to 

get and secure a better job in the future.  

Social ties are the most cost-effective and low-risk source of knowledge and 

information about the host country. Social ties can provide new immigrants many 

trustworthy and practical information about the local labor market, employers’ 

preference, access to obtain a job, work patterns of local people, which give them a 

flow of knowledge and information on finding their way in the new host country. 

Previous studies showed that many job opportunities of new settlers were 

introduced by local social ties, especially co-ethnic social ties. A study on Chinese 

migrants in the United States of America stated that the predominant way for 

Chinese workers to find a job or secure employment is through the co-ethnic 



 

 

28 

networks (Tu, Zhou, Wong, & Okazaki, 2018). 

Despite the importance of local social connection, especially the co-ethnic networks, 

quite a few migrants can have it pre-arrival. Some may even fail to establish social 

networks rapidly post-arrival.  

4. Consequences of underemployment 

Generally, underemployment has wide-ranging consequences for individuals, families, 

and communities (Maynard & Feldman, 2011). Further, it also has a negative impact 

on reemployment possibilities, long term labor market outcomes and can have a 

severe impact on people’s psychological and physical health (Friedland & Price, 2003; 

Zvonkovic, Guss, & Ladd, 1988).  

According to human capital theory (Becker, 1993), individuals make decision on their 

investment in acquiring human capital on themselves, in terms of education, training, 

certification, and so forth, with the expectation of commensurate economic rewards 

and outcomes. In other words, people study hard and get trained, with the hope of 

getting decent jobs and being paid commensurately, if their expected results cannot 

be met, many problems will come out.  

Prior studies have shown that underemployed employees have many adverse 

reactions to their work, such as turnover intention, absenteeism, and deviance 

(Kraimer, Shaffer, & Bolino, 2009). Feldman et al. (2002) also noted that underutilized 

skill underemployment was even a more significant driver of negative job outcomes 

than pay cuts or demotions. Underemployment can also lead to degrading one’s 

social and financial status in the new host country and always associated with loss of 

self-esteem and self-confidence.  

Besides, the consequences of underemployment can also extend to the wellbeing of 

other family members, including partners, children, relatives, and friends. For 

example, under hour underemployment, people may need to work multiple jobs to 

get enough incomes to meet ends. Fulfilling multi-jobs commitment requires more 



 

 

29 

time and greater psychological and physical expenditure, which will result in fewer 

personal resources for family responsibilities and keeping harmonious relationships 

among family members (Michel, Kotrba, Mitchelson, Clark, & Baltes, 2011).  

At the country level, the human capital theory stated that only when human capital 

matches the jobs employees hold, effective labor utilization and labor market 

efficiency can occur. As to a country of immigration, underemployment can damage 

both the host country and immigrants themselves as well. For the host country, 

underemployment will block the way for skilled immigrants from filling skill shortages 

(Wagner & Childs, 2006). The purpose of the skill immigration scheme is attracting 

skilled immigrants to expend skill pool for the host country; however, 

underemployment makes it in vain. All the benefits that flow from migration, such as 

skill acquisition, skill, and knowledge transfer, will be enhanced only if the migrants 

can obtain superior positions in line with their education level (Mattoo, Neagu, & 

Özden, 2008). Besides, underemployment will also result in missing valuable tax 

revenues for the government, as if people are underemployed, their salary is 

supposed to be much lower than those who are matched employed. Thus, the less 

someone earns, the less he will pay for the tax.  

4.1 Psychological consequences 

Underemployment can lead to severe depression and may have many negative 

impacts on employees’ psychological wellbeing (Wilkins, 2007; Feldman, 1996), such 

as low life satisfaction level (Feldman & Turnley, 1995; Nabi, 2003), low job 

satisfaction and commitment level, loss of self-esteem (Prause & Dooley, 1997; 

Friedland & Price, 2003), loss of confidence, loss of control, bad interpersonal 

relations and severe financial stress.  

4.1.1 Low job satisfaction and commitment level 

One result of underemployment is a low-level of job satisfaction (Green & Henseke, 

2016) and job involvement (Burris, 1983a; Abrahamsen, 2010; Burke, 1997; Feldman 



 

 

30 

& Turnley, 1995), while a high level of work alienation (Lee, 2005). According to 

discrepancy theory, employees who received desired job-related outcomes will show 

an increase in positive job-related attitudes and behaviors (Lawer, 1973); otherwise, 

negative impacts may appear.  

It is widely accepted that employees work hard and commit to their organizations for 

the exchange of satisfactory employment, in terms of pay, pleasant working 

environment and conditions, ongoing employment contract, and opportunities for 

advancement. However, being underemployed, their expectations may not be met, 

which will lead to the result that employees are not satisfied with their jobs and will 

not engage in their works. They may view their work solely as means of survival 

instead of self-fulfillment.  

Being skill-job mismatched employed, employees are much likely to view their jobs 

as pointless and demotivating (Borgen, Amundson, & Harder, 1988). Employees who 

are overqualified in terms of education or working experience may have the desire to 

perform at a higher level; if they cannot get the opportunities, they may show less 

interest in their jobs and high intention to leave.   

4.1.2 Loss of self-esteem 

Jobs cannot only satisfy people’s economic demands but may also improve one’s 

self-esteem (Jahoda, 1982). Working on a decent job with a favorable income can 

help people build self-esteem and social status in the host country.  

Self-esteem is defined as the degree to which one values himself (Reber, 1995); it is 

considered to be interconnected with the development of many life wellbeing (Orth 

& Robins, 2014). Underemployment makes people feel their skills and abilities are 

not being valued by an organization or even the whole society; it may degrade 

people’s social status in the new host country and make them feel the loss of 

self-esteem, which can lead to many negative outcomes, including negative 

self-image, discouragement, negative social comparisons. 



 

 

31 

4.1.3 Loss of confidence 

Underemployment people cannot get enough opportunities to utilize their skills and 

talent. They are also reported to have quite limited access to training and 

development opportunities (Pocock et al., 2004; TIEDE, 2018). As both skills and 

knowledge need to be advanced and upgraded over time, lack of training 

opportunities may have a direct negative impact on employees’ career advancement, 

which will gradually make them feel the loss of confidence in themselves.  

Further, if underemployment continues for a long-term, underemployed employees 

may even lose the ability to upgrade their skills and knowledge with on-job training, 

or must retrain for another field, or downgrade their life quality and force to accept 

long-term underemployment Schulze & Dixon, 2014). In that way, underemployed 

people may lose the opportunities to get on the right career track. 

Being underemployed for a relatively long time can make new immigrants feel 

negatively towards future and career prospect (Burke, 1997; Cassidy & Wright, 2008); 

they may feel not confident about their abilities and begin to doubt about 

themselves, which may have a negative influence on their career achievement.  

4.1.4 Loss of control 

Being underemployed, people may feel powerless to control happenings in both the 

present and future (Zvonkovic, Guss, & Ladd, 1988). For example, being hour 

underemployed, people may not have the ability to control their working hours and 

income. Most of the time, due to the variation in working hours, they even cannot 

predict working hours and income in advance, which makes it hard for them to make 

budget and time arrangements in advance. Under this situation, both 

underemployed employees and their families may feel that their lives are losing 

control and not secured, as they cannot predict and influence how many hours they 

can work and how much money they can earn. All those issues may generate high 

stress for both employees themselves and their families. 



 

 

32 

According to Holtom et al.’s work-status congruence study in 2002, volition is 

demonstrated very important in work, as employees who worked their desired hours 

and shifts reported high job satisfaction levels, affective commitment, and good 

performance and reduced voluntary turnover. However, hour underemployment 

makes people loss volition, which may result in a lower satisfaction level and suffered 

job performance.  

4.1.5 Bad interpersonal relations  

The strains caused by underdevelopment may not only be felt on an individual level, 

but it can also extend to families and surrounding communities.  

If a family member is underemployed, his other family numbers will also have some 

reactions and may even express criticism and blame towards underemployed family 

members (Zvonkovic, Guss, & Ladd, 1988). Underemployment partners are also 

reported not satisfied with their finances status and their relationship (Zvonkovic, 

Guss, & Ladd, 1988). Liem and Liem (1988) found that when one partner is dealing 

with depression, the impact will spread to the other partner or even the whole family; 

it may increase family stress and harm the family environment. The previous study 

has reported that if husbands are experience underemployment, both spouses were 

reported having trouble with communication and increasing conflict (Liem & Liem, 

1979). Voydanoff (1984) also indicated that the experience of underemployment 

might also lead to life dissatisfaction and unstable relationships. 

Underemployment can also hurt interpersonal relationships. One key reason is that 

people who are being underemployed may spend less time on social outings 

(Newman, 1988), due to his tight budget for leisure activities. 

Aycan and Berry (1996) suggested that employment provide not only financial 

resource but also identity and status, which may give immigrants confidence and 

willingness to develop interpersonal relationships with others in the community. 

However, underemployment can degrade people’s social status in the new host 



 

 

33 

country and make them feel a loss of self-esteem, which may make underemployed 

employees felt ashamed and not willing to socialize with others. A study conducted 

by Alpass et al. (2007) showed the result that full-time employment could enable 

immigrants much more engaged in social activities.  

Further, One option underemployed employees always use to cope with hour or 

income underemployment is to take multiple jobs, however, even though, a second 

job can help to reduce financial stress, it will also reduce one’s time with family and 

connect with family, friends, in return, this may also cause another form of family 

stress and social insolation as well. 

4.1.6 Financial stress 

Underemployment is always featured with low pay (Thompson et al., 2013). Under 

inadequate employment, skilled immigrants are not likely to earn family-sustaining 

salaries (Batalova, Fix, & Bachmeier, 2016). In order to survive, underemployed 

employees have to accept nonstandard work arrangements or work in jobs 

mismatching their education. That mismatched employment will lead to great 

financial stress for both immigrants and their families as well (Maynard & Feldman, 

2011). 

Further, workers who are being underemployed or working in nonstandard work 

arrangement are always not entitled to get payment for non-working time, paid 

maternity leave, holiday or sick leave (Carey & Hazelbaker, 1986), which means they 

do not have any income during the time they do not work. This no payment period 

can generate enormous financial pressure, which may lead to high personal and 

family stress. Besides, underemployed employees always do not have other benefits 

as other employees, such as housing allowance, child care allowance, and insurance.  

4.2 Physical consequences 

Underemployment is always featured with excessive workloads, low payment, and 

poor working conditions (Weishaar, 2008), which may lead to many physical 



 

 

34 

consequences as well, such as poor physical condition, unexpected injuries, and 

accidents, unhealthy behaviors to deal with stress.  

4.2.1 Poor physical condition  

Working longer hours is one reason for the poor physical condition of 

underemployed employees. Due to the financial strain caused by underemployment, 

people sometimes have to take multiple jobs to meet their ends, pay off debt or earn 

extra money (Hipple, 2010), which will lead to the result of working long hours with 

low hourly payment. Casey (1991) pointed out that 54% of temporary workers were 

also working part-time. Working longer hours will cause many physical problems. 

Carballo and Nerukar (2001) stated that there were more migrant workers than local 

workers who experienced accidents and injuries in the construction and public works 

industries in many western countries, and the reason was believed to be long 

working hours of migrant employees. 

Working unpredictable working hours and get unpredictable income may make 

people feel that they are vulnerable and powerless (Maynard & Feldman, 2011), they 

are much likely to experience a reduced sense of control (Pocock, 2003), which may 

lead to the outcomes of bad mental health (Maynard & Feldman, 2011), as well as 

unhealthy behaviors to deal with stress. 

Further, underemployment is considered to be positively related to health decline 

(McKee-Ryan & Harvey, 2011). Besides, due to the financial stress caused by 

underemployment, people may have less budget for medical examination (Alpass et 

al., 2007), medical insurance, and medical service; this may also have an impact on 

one’s health.  

4.2.2 Unhealthy behaviors to deal with stress 

Underemployment was reported related to many unhealthy behaviors, such as easy 

to get angry, arguing or even fighting at home, unhealthy activities to deal with stress, 

including gambling, smoking, alcohol abuse, playing online games, lethargy, 



 

 

35 

overeating. Dooley and Prause (1998) found that underemployment was also related 

to alcohol abuse; they stated that people who experienced underemployment had an 

increase in the level of alcohol abuse. 

Long term underemployment can cause significant tension at home, which can easily 

lead to conflict between partners, parents, and children. Bad partnership relations 

can break the harmonious environment at home. Partners are easily to have an 

argument or even fighting at home. People who are underemployed may sometimes 

experience the feeling of losing control over their emotions and may easily express 

their anger towards others (Lauritsen, 1995).  

5. Facilitators of better employment - Support 

Support is considered to be an instrumental facilitator of employment for new 

immigrants. Support can come from many aspects, such as government, policymaker, 

employers, local connection, co-ethnic group, and the local community.  

The government can design some pre- and post-arrival programs for new immigrants 

to help them settle in the new land easier and engage in the new society rapidly. 

Those programs may cover the areas of language education, local culture 

introduction (comparison of values of local culture and the culture of the host 

country), employment suggestion, and local lifestyle introduction, aimed at providing 

newcomers a general idea of the new place (Shang, O'Driscoll, & Roche, 2016). The 

government can also design some policies to encourage local organizations to recruit 

new migrants, such as getting a tax reduction when hiring certain numbers of new 

migrants. The government may also develop some training for organizations on 

cultural diversity and international human resource management to let them know 

how to cope with the conflicts in the workplace caused by cultural differences and 

what can be brought to an organization by recruiting migrants who have valuable 

working experience, advanced skills, and knowledge. 

Employers can design some acculturation programs for new immigrated employees 



 

 

36 

to assist them in getting more ideas on local culture and how to adjust to the new 

culture, aiming at helping them work more smoothly and successfully in the new 

diverse working environment (Meyer, 2014). Employers should pay more attention to 

stress caused by cultural differences, such as interpersonal conflicts and 

misunderstandings between new immigrants and local employees (Shang, O'Driscoll, 

& Roche, 2016).  

Support from the co-ethnic group, including friends, relatives, neighbors, is very 

useful. Due to the same cultural background, people from the co-ethnic group are 

much easier to get mutual understanding; their help is always direct and effective. 

Building a connection with the co-ethnic group is the most effective way to get help 

and local information. A study on Chinese migrants in the United States of America 

showed that a large portion of Chinese workers relied on a co-ethnic network to find 

a job and secure employment (Tu, Zhou, Wong, & Okazaki, 2018). Support from the 

co-ethnic group may include providing new migrants employment opportunities, 

providing them practical local information, helping them with family responsibilities. 

Support from the local community is also an instrumental facilitator for the 

employment of new immigrants. As the community is where immigrants live, the 

information from the local community is more handy and practical. Several studies 

have found that the community in which the underemployed people were embedded 

may have a significant impact on both their and their families’ ability to deal with 

underemployment; a community with resources available may support families both 

emotionally and materially (Garbarina & Sherman, 1980; Zvonkovic, Guss, & Ladd, 

1988). 

6. Family wellbeing 

Family wellbeing refers to a sense of wellbeing of the family, collectively and 

subjectively defined and informed by its members, in which individual and 

family-level needs interact (Zuna, Summers, Turnbull, Hu, & Xu, 2010).  



 

 

37 

It is of great value to enhance family wellbeing, as a family is not isolated. It is 

connected to other families, schools, workplaces, and surrounding communities 

(Social Policy Evaluation and Research Unit, 2017). If the family is doing well, it will 

benefit not only family members, but also surrounding communities.  

The family provides day-to-day care and support to all family numbers; all family 

members share resources, including time, money to live their life; families provide 

family members with a sense of identity, trust, belonging and security (Family 

wellbeing in Auckland, 2017). What’s more, a family is the foundation of 

communities. If a family is doing well, then so is the whole society.  

The domains used to measure family wellbeing include family structure, health, 

relationships, financial security, housing, environment, skills, employment, identity, 

and sense of belonging. Employment has an impact on almost all the domains listed 

above. Income earned from employment can decide the financial status of a family, 

good financial status can ensure good living conditions and high life quality, good 

education opportunities for children, enough budget for family expenditure; it can 

make all the family members feel secure in their lives. Besides, descent employment 

makes people feel more confident in themselves, and it can help employees build 

their social identity. Employees’ social identity may decide the social identity of their 

whole families. 



 

 

38 

Chapter 3 Methodology 

This study replicates the work of Work experiences of Asian immigrants: Impact on 

family wellbeing (Sobrun-Maharaj, Rossen, & Kim, 2011). There was a remarkable 

growth trend of Chinese migrants from mainland China from 2011 to 2007. The 

participants in the original work were Asian, while the current study recruited only 

participants from mainland China. Due to the significant growth of Chinese migrants 

from mainland China, the Chinese workforce has accounted for a large portion of the 

New Zealand labor market. Their employment experience may have a substantial 

impact on the performance of the whole host country labor market. Besides, more 

antecedents were taken into consideration compared with the original work, such as 

motivation of immigration, their visa status, as those antecedents may also have an 

impact on employees’ perception of their employment status. The original study was 

conducted in 2011; there is a eight years gap between the original study and the 

current study. During the eight years, many changes may happen on the factors 

which may have an impact on the employment of migrants; updated researches 

should be done to make the results up to date. 

The same with the replicated study, the current research was also conducted by using 

qualitative research techniques, as qualitative techniques can enable an in-depth 

examination of the research topic. Quantitative research is structured, rigid, and 

predetermined methodology; it is often used to classify features, count them, and 

construct a statistical model in order to explain what has been observed. By using a 

quantitative research technique, researchers always know in advance what they are 

looking for, and they use quantitative techniques to get the result they want. 

However, for this research, the purpose is to get a full picture of the working 

experience on new migrants’ family wellbeing, researchers did not know what results 

can be generated, how deep the topic can be discussed, and how broad the impact 

can be. In this case, an unstructured, flexible, and open methodology qualitative 

research may be used to get an in-depth discussion with participants. 



 

 

39 

Due to the nature of the research question, which is the impact of the working 

experience of new Chinese migrants on their family wellbeing, a semi-structured 

interview has been applied (Galletta, 2016). The semi-structured interview is a 

research method often used in social science. Compared with a structured interview, 

which consists of a rigorous set of questions, a semi-structured interview is quite 

open; it consists of many open-ended questions, which allow new ideas to be 

generated during the interview. Semi-structured interview not only addresses specific 

dimensions of the research questions but also enables participants to offer new 

insights regarding the study topic, it leaves space for participants to provide new 

meanings to the study to focus. For example, for the question “do you feel safe doing 

the job that you are currently doing? Why?” Participants are not only required to ask 

yes or no; they are also encouraged to share his opinion and experience about what 

may make him feel safe in their employment; the question “Did you find it easy to 

adapt life in Auckland? Why?” gives participants a great space to talk about his 

experience and provide researchers with deep thinking; they can even broaden the 

researcher’s horizon and offer new areas to be explored.  

In a semi-structured interview, researchers always have an interview guide, but 

interviewers may adjust the order of the questions, according to the narratives of 

interviewees. As in this research, when participants talk about their understanding of 

work and the value of work in life, they may also speak about their previous working 

experience. In this case, interviewers do not need to ask their previous job in the 

employment part. Besides, researchers can tailor their questions under different 

situations and can ask one question in various ways for different participants.  

Semi-structured interviews are widely used in qualitative research, as it enables an 

in-depth discussion of the research topic. In qualitative research like the current 

study, the semi-structured interview protocol is designed to be cumulative and 

iterative. It creates the space for a continuum of structure. What the participant 

narrates and how that narrative unfolds inform the remaining segments of the 



 

 

40 

interview. In the current study, the questions have been prepared to progressively 

lead the participant into a full consideration of the variables of interest. How you 

guide your participant through the protocol is another crucial aspect of qualitative 

research. 

Several changes have been made to the original study to ensure other relevant 

aspects, such as financial status, barriers, and facilitators, and family wellbeing, was 

covered. Specifically, the following changes were made: 

1. The current study asked participants’ income levels in both China and New Zealand 

and if their income can cover their expenses in New Zealand. The reason why this 

question has been added was that income had a significant impact on participants’ 

job satisfaction levels. If an immigrant work in a job they do not like, and he does not 

like working with his peers, but he can get an excellent pay, which enables his family 

to have nice housing, his children can have a good education opportunities, and they 

can live in a more pleasant environment, then he may still have a high job satisfaction 

level, as even though, he does not like his job, but as it can contribute to a positive 

family wellbeing.  

2. To know the financial status of participants, whether they have savings or any 

other income except work income, have also been asked. As if participants have a 

considerable amount of savings or additional income, which can bring them some 

income from their savings, such as interest from the bank, income from financial 

products. They will have less financial pressure, and they may have different attitudes 

towards survival employment. 

3. In the barriers and facilitator part, the question of how long have they been to 

Auckland and have they already permanent resident (PR) status has been added into 

the interview schedule. Further, participants’ marital status and whether they have 

children have also been asked. All those factors may have an impact on an 

individual’s attitude towards their work and eventually will change the impact of 

work on their family wellbeing. Take PR factor for example, if an employee works on 



 

 

41 

a job with low pay and not in his study field, but the company can allow him to apply 

PR for him and his family to settle, even though his work content, payment level, 

working arrangement and working hour may not meet his expectation, he may still 

satisfied with his job, and feel secured of his life, as his job gives the basic 

requirement for his family living in New Zealand. In that case, they may think that PR 

is the cost of their underemployment status. However, if it is still the same job for 

someone who has already gotten PR, it will be a different story.  

4. Domains measuring family wellbeing have been asked in detail to assess 

participants’ family welling, which include family structure, health, relationships, 

financial security, housing, environment, skills, employment, identity, and sense of 

belonging. The original work used family as an interview unit, while the current work 

uses individual migrants as interview units. 

1. Recruitment and sample 

Migrants always refer to people who move from one country to another country to 

settle (Razum & Samkange-Zeeb, 2008). Based on this definition, participants in the 

current study are all Chinese, born and used to live in Mainland China, who have 

been settled in New Zealand for less than five years. Migrants’ life experience and 

work experience may change over time with the improvement of their language level, 

the establishment of local social networks, acculturation of both themselves and 

their family, and accumulation of local work experience. People who have been in 

New Zealand less than five years are more likely to experience underemployment, 

and the impact of underemployment on them are more serious. 

As the research topic is the impact of working experience, all participants are of  

working age, with at least Bachelor’s degree obtained in either China or New Zealand, 

and they all work and live in Auckland now.  

Participants were recruited by using the combination of convenience (personal 

network) and snowballing sampling technique, and a total of 12 participants have 



 

 

42 

been invited to do the semi-structured interview. The sample was chosen to 

maximize variability in gender, sector, age, employment status, and education. Seven 

of them are female, while five are male. Seven of them are full-time employees, and 

the others are either part-time or casual workers. Even though the sample size is 

relatively small, it, to some degree, still represents a diverse sample of Chinese 

migrant workers in the Auckland labor market. 

2. Procedure 

The interviews were conducted between March 2019 and May 2019. The interviews 

were held at either cafe, local library, or participants’ home with the choice of 

participants themselves, and the time was also chosen by each participant to suit 

their convenience. Each interview lasted around 30-45mins, and all the interviews 

have been done one by one with only the presence of researcher and interviewee.  

Interviewees were given an information sheet to read to let them informed about the 

research information and their right as a participant. We provided two language 

versions (Chinese and English) of information sheet and consent form for participants 

to choose; they can choose which version to use by themselves. After reading the 

information sheet, they all signed the consent form before the beginning of their 

interview.  

The interview consists of four main parts, cultural assumption, employment barriers, 

and employment facilitators and finally, impacts on their family wellbeing, which 

covers the topics of participants’ understanding of work and life, the value of work in 

their life, their education background, their working experience in both China and 

New Zealand, the process by which they moved to and settled in New Zealand, 

barriers and facilitators of their employment in New Zealand, including institutional 

factors, environmental factors and personal factors, and finally the impact of their 

work on their family wellbeing.  

At the beginning of each interview, participant’s demographic information had been 



 

 

43 

asked first, including age, gender, marital status, years since settled in New Zealand, if 

they have children or not, and if yes, their children’ age (illustrated in Table 1). 

Table 1 Participants’ Personal Information 

Intervi

ewees 

Gender Marital 

Status 

Years in New 

Zealand 

Visa Status Children and Age 

1 MD Female Divorced 3.5 Permanent Resident Daughters 7 & 12 

2 LL Female Married 2 Work Visa Daughter 3.5 

3 JH Male Single 3 Work Visa Son 5 

4 ML Female Single 4 Permanent Resident None 

5 AL Male Married 2 Work Visa Daughter 3.5 

6 JEH Male Married 1 Work Visa None 

7 SL Male Married 2 Work Visa Sons 6 & 3 

8 DH Female Married 4.5 Permanent Resident Son 10 

9 JS Male Married 3 Work Visa Daughter 4 Son1.5 

10 CL Female Single 2 Work Visa None 

11 LH Female Divorced 2.5 Work Visa None 

12 TC Female Married 3 Permanent Resident None 

The interviews were conducted in Chinese, aimed at enabling participants to 

communicate their ideas easily and accurately. The interviews were recorded where 

the participants consented and detailed notes have been taken. All transcripts were 

transcribed and translated into English by the researcher after the interviews. 

3. Data analysis 

After the interview, the researcher transcribed all the discussions and translated 

them into English. Data was gathered, coded and analyzed by using Nvivo, which 

divided data into several sectors, including value of work in life, motivation for 

immigration, local connections, education and qualification, employment, barriers 

and facilitators of employment and family wellbeing, all those sectors will be 



 

 

44 

discussed in detail in result and discussion part. 

4. Ethics approval 

The Massey University Human Ethics Committee (UAHPEC) approved the study on 11 

March 2019 (Reference 4000020621).  



 

 

45 

Chapter 4 Results and Discussion 

Results have been categorized into seven major themes, including the value of work 

in life, motivation for immigration, local connections, education and qualification, 

employment, barriers and facilitators of employment, and family wellbeing. 

1. Value of work in life 

Different from the replicated study, which indicated that all participants thought that 

work was extremely important in their lives. In this study, participants showed three 

main attitudes towards their jobs.  

First, people work to survive. Those people indicated that work was vital to them, 

especial in their early immigration stage, as the setup cost in a new country has 

caused a server financial stress for them. Many of them have to have a job to earn 

their lives. This was also found by Ho, Meares, Peace, and Spoonley in their work 

Bamboo networks: Chinese employers and employees in Auckland in 2010. They 

cannot afford to spend money and time on finding a commensurate job, or at least 

find a job in line with their study sector; their top requirement is to find a job as soon 

as possible.  

In this case, a job is just a means to earn money. It is not an occupation which can 

provide personal achievement. Participants under this situation also indicated that 

they could accept to do multiple jobs to make extra money. For example: 

I have to have a job, as my child need to eat. The life expenditure is too high in 

Auckland. I usually need to spend 300NZD just on Paknsave a week. You know, that is 

crazy as I only have three adults and one child at my home. Besides, my rent is 490 

per week, that almost the rent in China for a whole month. It makes me feel nervous 

to check my bank account balance every time. I do not care what I do. All I want is 

making money. (AL) 

New Zealand is too expensive, I have no time to think about my career, as work so 



 

 

46 

many hours to, you know, meet my ends. (SL) 

People hold this point of view towards work care more about money than job 

content. They are more easily to be affected by time and income underemployment, 

which may directly lead to cash decrease. One participant expressed that when he 

did not have work to do or be arranged few hours to work, he may worry about his 

budget, which made him feel losing control. He also said unable to forecast revenue 

in advance made him felt anxious, and he thought that his life was not secured. This 

has also been found in previous studies (Maynard & Feldman, 2011; Pocock, 2003). 

I do not know how much money I can get next week, which made me worry about my 

life all the time. (AL) 

Second, there were two female participants treated the job as a providing for their 

family, which means they do not must to work to survive, but they still prefer to take 

a job to earn some money to improve the quality of their life.  

Participants held this point of view towards work expressed a high requirement of 

flexible working arrangement and work-life balance. They represented the highest 

satisfaction level of both work and life in New Zealand in the current study. 

Their motivation to work was not providing basic needs, but to improve their life 

quality, such as better education, more public activities, more meals at fancy 

restaurants, better medical treatments. Both of them stated that they were not too 

careful about the type of their job, and both of them preferred part-time jobs or 

casual jobs, which still enabled them to concentrate more on their families. They put 

more value on families than on jobs. Besides, they both expressed their satisfaction 

with New Zealand’s flexible working arrangement. 

I can be a full-time housewife at home, my husband’s income can cover our expenses, 

but we have to have a tight budget every week. That is not coinciding with our 

purpose of immigration. We are here to have a better life for my daughter, but the 

reality is that we even need to calculate if we can buy a new dress for her this week. I 



 

 

47 

work to improve her life quality, or at least make it even, compared with our life in 

Beijing. (DH) 

I can be a housewife at home, but if holding a job can give us a better life, why not? 

But you know, of course, my family is more important than my job. (LL) 

Both participants holding this value have less financial pressure, as they are not the 

economic pillar at home; even though they work part-time or casual, they are not 

considered to be hour underemployed, as it is their choice to work shorter hours to 

balance their responsibility at home.  

None of them indicated having a plan for their career development, as a career 

seems not a big concern for them, at least at this stage. So even though they cannot 

work in the sector they studied (skill underemployment) or get fewer payment 

(income underemployment) than their previous jobs in their home country, the 

negative impact of underemployment can seldom be seen on both of them and their 

families. This was the same with Mckee-Ryan and Harvey (2011), pointed in the 

theoretical approaches to underemployment, they found that personal work 

preference was an antecedent of underemployment, it can have an impact on one’s 

perception of underemployment. 

The third point towards the value of work is that work can provide them a sense of 

achievement, and they think career development is crucial for them to achieve 

self-worth. In the current study, two indicated this point. Employment gave them 

opportunities to capitalize on their skills and previous working experience. They 

believed that comparable employment might also provide them further training 

opportunities to improve their skills or extend their skills, which might make them 

more confident about themselves and improve their chances of reemployment.  

I need to work to find myself here. As a man, I am the head of my family. I must have 

a foothold in this land. I do not want to do a low skill job; it is a waste of my brain. 

(AL) 



 

 

48 

If I can have a decent job, I will feel more involved in the new life here. (SL)  

It is hard for me to accept my job now, I want to have a job at least the same level 

with my job in China, I do not know why I can only work in that low skill here in New 

Zealand, you know, I used to work in a bank before, I even have my private assistant. 

But now, I am a driver. That is so ridiculous. (SL) 

The current study revealed many factors might affect people’s perception of the 

value of work in their life. Those factors may include their financial status, their 

previous working experience, and their family status. The current study also 

demonstrated that people with different attitudes towards their jobs might lead to a 

different perception of underemployment. Meanwhile, the impacts of 

underemployment on them are different. 

2. Motivation of immigration  

Migrants’ motivation for immigration can have an impact on their perception of 

underemployment. Motivation may be affected by many factors, such as individuals’ 

characteristics, career history, and employment experiences. Besides, motivation of 

immigration will influence individuals’ job search strategies and their own work 

preferences, which are also considered to be the antecedents of underemployment 

in McKee-Ryan and Harvey (2011)’s approach. 

The replicated work did not analyze the motivation of participants’ immigration, but 

their motivation for migration may have a high impact on their expectations towards 

their lives and work in New Zealand, as people tend to focus on their reasons for 

coming. Besides, motivation for migration may also have an impact on migrants’ 

attitudes towards underemployment. Their motivation for immigration will finally 

reduce and enhance the negative and positive impact of their working experience on 

their family wellbeing. 

Four main purposes have been mentioned by participants when asked about their 

purposes of coming, including better education for children, a relaxed Western 



 

 

49 

lifestyle, pleasant environment, and career opportunity. Those purposes of coming 

were the same as previous studies (Ho, 2015; Ip 2011; Lewin et al., 2011; Liu, 2004). 

Of the twelve participants interviewed in this study, all of them mentioned a relaxed 

Western lifestyle and pleasant environment as one of the drivers of immigration to 

New Zealand without exceptions. That was also stated by Liu (2004), saying that the 

main incentive for migrating to New Zealand was ‘a conscious choice to have a better 

quality of life and education of their children’ (p514).   

We heard in China that New Zealand is the purest place in the world, we want to have 

a more relaxed life in a clean and peaceful place, and then we came. (LH) 

I lived in Beijing before I arrived, the work was stressful, and the air pollution was 

awful. I did not want to live as a working machine in a place I even couldn’t breathe 

freely. (LH) 

I am here to find a more pleasant natural environment for my daughter. (LL) 

Eight of them took better education for their children as a driver of immigration. 

They wished their children can get rid of the examination-oriented education style in 

China and have a more pleasant childhood in New Zealand.  

There is so much homework in China. My children have no time to play. I do not want 

them to work that hard. I want them to be happy. (MD) 

The examination-oriented education style in China kills the creativity of a child. I do 

not like it. (TC) 

Only two of them mentioned they want to get a better opportunity for their career 

development in New Zealand if possible. Those who took career opportunity as a 

driver tended to have more requirements and a better expectation towards their 

employment. They expressed a high expectation of equivalent employment 

opportunities. 

I want to have a career here, just I had done in China. (SL) 



 

 

50 

New Zealand is a developed country; there must have an opportunity for me to 

release my dream. (AL) 

Compared with other western countries, such as the United State, UK, Australia, 

Germany, which are famous for its economy and advanced technology, even though 

New Zealand is a developed country, it is more well known for its balanced lifestyle 

(“Balanced lifestyle”, n.d.). That should be one of the reasons why there are fewer 

people choose New Zealand to advance their career. Most participants came for the 

reason of a better environment, relax lifestyle, better education, and work-life 

balance. 

One significant change in the time since the original study is noted. The current study 

found that the component of Chinese immigrants has changed a lot over years (from 

2011 to 2019). There are always two main parts of Chinese immigrants. One part is 

those who come to New Zealand to pursue higher education; another part is parents 

of young children (always under ten years). From 2011 to 2019, there was a 

remarkable increase in the second part compared with the first part. The reason 

should be that most of those who were born in the 1980s (post-80s) began to have 

children. Compared with those who were born in the 1970s (post-70s), their 

education level is higher, their English level is higher, and their income is higher as 

well; all the above characteristics make it much likely for them to immigrate to 

another country.  

For this new parent group, they almost all have careers in China, from which they 

have accumulated wealth to immigrate to New Zealand. They gave up their careers to 

come to New Zealand, where is famous for its work-life balance and western lifestyle, 

their motivation was much more likely to be better education for children, a pleasant 

natural environment and a relaxed western lifestyle. Besides, some participants 

indicated that, due to their working experience in China, they had already had the 

experience of high working pressure, which made them felt tired of fast-paced 

lifestyle, they were much more clearly about what they want in employment. 



 

 

51 

Participants held this point of view were more likely to accept underemployment. 

Local networks hadn’t been thoroughly discussed in the replicated study, but as from 

the interviews in current study, many participants mentioned that local networks had 

a significant impact on their employment (especially for their first employment) in 

New Zealand and all participants identified local connection as a significant factor 

contributing to settlement and employment here. So local networks were given 

special attention in the results part of this study. 

Four participants had local connection pre-arrival; they all said their local networks 

provide them with either useful information or help on their immigration and 

employment. Besides, the pre-arrival local connections can also provide support to 

new migrants if they needed. For example, they can help new migrants to take care 

of their children; send their children to daycare; pick up their children after school; 

take care of them when they are sick. All those support are stated as facilitators of 

employment in the literature review. 

My auntie has been to New Zealand for more than ten years; she provided me much 

practical information on New Zealand. The website named Skykiwi.com was also 

introduced by my auntie, and both two of my employment had been found on that 

website. (MD) 

I got a job one week after my arrival. I work in my auntie’s Souvenir Shop. Even 

though it is not a formal job, it still makes me feel secure and helps release our 

financial burden. (JS) 

I am so lucky to have relatives in New Zealand, they are beneficial, and they help me 

pick up my son after school every day, as school ends at 3 pm, but I need work until 5 

pm. (MD) 

Unmentioned in both the replicated study and previous literature, participants also 

expressed that local connection shaped their expectation of the first employment in 

three ways. First, participants predicted what kinds of jobs they can do from what 



 

 

52 

were their friends or relatives doing. Second, the local connections provided 

suggestions on their employment pre-arrival. Third, their local connections gave 

them some websites with employment information, such as Shenma, Skykiwi, which 

gave them a basic idea of the employment status of Chinese migrants in New Zealand. 

Participants who knew employment status in advance, report a low expectation of 

decent employment. Thus the negative impact of underemployment decreased on 

them.  

My classmate in my university in China is doing a low skill job here. She told me it is 

not easy to do something related to our major. So I knew in advance that I have to 

accept underemployment here in New Zealand. You know, no expectation, no 

disappointment, so it is not so hard for me to accept the situation. (LH) 

My auntie introduced Skykiwi to me right after I made my decision to settle here, I got 

much useful information there, including employment information, a large portion of 

jobs listed on that website are low skill jobs, including kitchen hand, dishwasher, 

builder, driver, waiter. That was my first impression of employment in New Zealand. 

(MD) 

Without mentioned in both the replicated study and previous literature, two 

participants even said that the reason why they choose to come to New Zealand was 

that they had either relatives or friends here, which they thought may make their 

immigration process smoother and make them feel safer.  

Besides, living with relatives in one country gives them a sense of belonging. One of 

them said that they used to visit their relatives in New Zealand when he was young, 

and from that trip, he got his first impression of New Zealand, which had a significant 

impact on her decision to migrate here. 

My auntie has lived here for more than ten years. I want to immigrate to a western 

country for my daughter’s education; the first country came to my mind was New 

Zealand, because at least there was someone I can ask for help. (MD) 



 

 

53 

I visited my auntie in my high school summer holiday. I fell in love with New Zealand 

from that time and that why after many years I still dream of living here and finally I 

came. (MD) 

Five participants who did not have any pre-arrival local networks, built their contact 

with local people very soon after their arrival through local community activities, 

co-ethical community website, and introduction by neighbors. Those local 

connections were considered providing them either access to employment 

opportunities information or direct opportunities. For example: 

My jobs were introduced by my neighbor, who is also Chinese. (ML) 

I work in the same place with my cousin. He introduced me there. (JEH) 

The other three did not have a pre-arrival local connection, and their jobs were found 

by themselves on local job finding websites, such as trade me, seek. However, those 

jobs were all low skill jobs, such as cleaning, laboring, farming. Besides, it took them 

a relatively longer time to get their first employment in New Zealand, compared with 

those who have local connections. Participants who spent a longer time finding their 

employment reported a more negative attitude towards both employment and 

reemployment. They also reported a higher satisfaction level of their jobs, as they 

believed that it was hard to find a position in the New Zealand labor market; it was 

lucky for them to have a job. 

The current study demonstrated that migrants’ motivation might reflect their 

expectations for both their life and work in the new host country. If their main 

expectations can be met, they may treat others as the tradeoff of what they value 

most. For participants in the current study, if migrants’ expectation of a pleasant 

environment, education for children, a relaxed western lifestyle and work-life balance 

can be met, then they were reported more comfortable to accept the 

underemployment status in New Zealand. Further, those who have local networks, 

they were even less care abou