Page 41 - IJPS-9-1

International Journal of
Population Studies Transportation assimilation in Hong Kong

endowments at the point of arriving at the destination, Hong Kong census provides a fair representation of the
some groups (e.g., Haitians in the U.S.) may display better overall demography of Hong Kong throughout the years.
interethnic integration while others eventually shy away Table 2 provides the descriptive statistics of our
from the host society (e.g., Cubans in the U.S.) (Portes analytical sample, which consists of 169,766 individuals
& Zhou, 1993). Following a previous discussion on age in total. Among the 169,766 immigrants in Hong Kong,
at arrival and length of stay in Hong Kong, we argue that 23,996, or approximately 14.13% of, respondents take the
younger immigrants, who are more accepting towards minibus as one of the major modes of daily transportation.
the local culture compared to those arriving at an older Within our analytical sample, 91.19% are respondents
age, may extend their initial advantages to the long-term. of Chinese ethnicity, and 8.81% are immigrants with
Hence, we hypothesized that among those who have spent non-Chinese ethnic origins. Approximately 14.53% of
the same period of time in Hong Kong, immigrants arriving Chinese immigrants have chosen a minibus as one of their
at a younger age are more likely to take the minibus than transportation modes to work, while the corresponding
those arriving at an older age (H7). number for immigrants of non-Chinese origin was 10.02%.
Extending the dynamic mode of integration to Chinese We now move on to describe our variables of interest.
immigrants arriving in different periods, the initial
sociopolitical environment they initially encountered 2.2. Variables of interest
at the destination might exert long-lasting impacts on We have limited our sample to those at least 15 years old and
their assimilation in the long-term. For example, taking actively working/looking for jobs. We define immigrants
advantage of a natural experiment, scholars confirmed that as regular residents who were not born in Hong Kong.
immigrants who fortunately went through naturalization
at the beginning were much better integrated in the long- 2.2.1. Minibus
term than other very similar immigrants who narrowly As shown in Table 2, the minibus is our binary dependent
missed naturalization (Hainmueller et al., 2017). We variable capturing whether a person takes the minibus
postulate that similar situations may also happen among to go to work. The census provides information on 1, the
Chinese immigrants in Hong Kong. Given the more primary mode of transport to work, and 2, other modes of
tolerant sociopolitical environment toward Chinese transport to work. Minibus users are coded as 1 for those
immigrants before 1997, we hypothesized that compared who have included red or green minibus as one of their
to Chinese immigrants arriving in or after 1997, those possible modes of transport to work; non-minibus users
arriving before the Handover are increasingly more likely to are coded as 0 for those who have not included minibus as
take minibus in the long-term (H8). In addition to Chinese a potential mode of transport to work.
integration, South-east Asians’ lower likelihood of minibus
taking in the long run, as previously explained under H4, is 2.2.2. Arriving in Hong Kong
another example of the dynamic mode of integration. Age at migration is a continuous variable derived from
Taken together, we would incorporate a dynamic mode one’s age and duration in Hong Kong. Based on the census
of integration in our research. We can argue that immigrants year and duration in Hong Kong, we derived the arriving
exhibit different transportation behaviors based on their cohorts as follows: Pre-1997 cohort (i.e., those who arrived
individual preferences, which is further intertwined in Hong Kong before 1997), 1997 – 1999 cohort, 2000 –
with contextual constraints like residential locations that 2004 cohort, 2005 – 2009 cohort, and 2010 – 2016 cohort.
influence opportunities for interethnic contacts. Hong Kong, For those who have stayed in Hong Kong for more than
with its unique post-colonial culture, is the destination for 20 years, since the census no longer provides their exact
many immigrants from developing and developed countries years of duration in Hong Kong, we lumped these people
worldwide, providing an interesting and important context into the pre-1997 cohort. As shown in Table 2, the average
for analyzing immigrants’ transportation behaviors in a age at migration for immigrants in Hong Kong is 27.36, with
non-western setting. a standard deviation of 11.04. The mean age at migration for
the immigrant minibus users is 26.55, which is 0.81 years
2. Data and variables younger than that of the full sample and 0.94 years younger
than the non-minibus users. We also acknowledge that all
2.1. Data the averaged ages are biased towards the left.
We pooled 4 years (2001, 2006, 2011, and 2016) of 5% of
Hong Kong census microdata obtained from the Census 2.2.3. Ethnicity
and Statistics Department of Hong Kong. With the relatively We included seven ethnicity categories in our sample:
large coverage of the sample size in each census year, the Chinese immigrants arriving before 1997, Chinese

Volume 9 Issue 1 (2023) 35 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.0386