Left-behind Elderly Parents: Psychology-Informed Theology and Older Adults in Hong Kong Whose Adult Children Migrated through the British National (Overseas) Visa Scheme
摘要
Since the announcement of the British National (Overseas) (BNO) visa on 22 July 2020, many young Hong Kong families, aiming for a different lifestyle, education, and opportunities, moved to Britain. However, for various reasons, such as language barriers, cultural differences, and a lack of community, the elderly parents of these young couples remained in Hong Kong. Various organisations have since released statistical analyses of increasing cases of loneliness, family disconnection, and suicide in the older adult population. Social identity and belonging to social groups provide meaning to an individual’s life, and the identity as a parent and grandparent is an important one to older adults. How do they reconcile with this loss of social relationships, and how can their social identity as members of a religious community support them in the midst of this transition? We find that left-behind elderly parents may be vulnerable or feel a sense of loss by the relatively sudden decision of their adult children to migrate to Britain. Numerous studies from the psychology discipline have investigated the impact of adult children’s migration on the well-being of elderly parents who are left behind, with many reporting significant negative effects on their physical and mental health, commonly attributed to reduced functional support and increased psychosocial isolation. These findings highlight the profound sense of loss experienced by older adults in cities like Hong Kong when their adult children migrate, meriting further investigation into how they cope with this challenge. Many of Hong Kong’s non-profit organisations have religious affiliations, because Hong Kong, as a British crown colony before 1997, had many Christian social welfare programmes. While the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government has a well-developed social welfare department, due to historical reasons, Protestant Christian social services continue to be an integral part of Hong Kong society. The social identity as a Christian is often a central one, and this chapter explores how such self-identification of membership can be crucial to these older adults. This chapter aims to determine how Christian social services and churches can facilitate the flourishing of older adults in the midst of the loss they face in the migration of their adult children and grandchildren. This chapter aims to answer the following questions: (1) How do Hong Kong Christian organisations support these left-behind elderly parents? (2) How do left-behind elderly parents understand their social identity, and the loss of such?