• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
• /
• v.14 no.4
• /
• pp.39-69
• /
• 2008

The present study examined the overall receptivity of community members to migrant wives in Korea. A total of 23 community members from two regions, Ansan, an urban area and Youngam, a rural area, were selected for the interview based on their prior experience with migrant wives. Data were collected via a semi-structured interview method. The participants provided their personal feelings and thoughts on a variety of issues involving migrant wives, such as how they perceive migrant wives' original culture and lifestyles, the nature of their interaction experience with migrant wives, their overall evaluation of migrant wives, their opinions about migrant wives' cultural adaptation, and their opinions about the on-going transformation of the Korean society into a multi-racial, multi-cultural society. Interview results indicated that, although the participants' attitude toward migrant wives was positive, the overall receptivity to migrant wives was largely based on the traditional sex-role stereotypes typically found in the Korean society. Moreover, the vast majority of the participants endorsed a narrow-minded, uni-directional perspective on cultural adaptation which puts far greater emphasis on migrant wives' assimilation into the host culture than reciprocal influence process between the two cultures. Implications of the study and directions for future research were discussed.

• The Journal of Korean Academic Society of Nursing Education
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.321-329
• /
• 2010

Purpose: The survey was performed to explore nurses' attitudes toward migrant wives in Korean society. Method: Four hundred thirty-eight respondents were recruited from 2 acute hospitals from 2 different geological areas. The attitude inventory to measure attitude toward migrant wives was utilized, which includes 6 factors such as prejudice, reliability, offensiveness, interests, acceptance, and influence. Result: The overall attitude was slightly positive (3.23) and reliability was the only non-positive scoring factor. Among the general characteristics education level showed a significant difference in 5 factors consistently compared to other characteristics. Conclusion: It can be concluded that Korean nurses tend to take a neutral to slightly positive attitude toward migrant wives. Therefore, any influence from nurses' attitudes related to migrant wives can be ignored. Obstacles or barriers which could hamper nursing care for migrant wives need to be identified and studies of strategies to overcome any existing barriers are called for.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
• /
• v.28 no.1
• /
• pp.69-86
• /
• 2010

The present study examined the cultural sensitivity of community members to migrant wives in Korea. A total of 12 community members: 4 neighbors, 4 practitioners, and 4 public officials from both urban and rural area were interviewed about their prior experiences with migrant wives. The participants provided their personal feelings and thoughts on a variety of issues involving migrant wives, such as cultural integration, cultural knowledge, opportunity equality, cultural originality, language usage, openness, and the movement toward a more multicultural society. Interview results indicated that the participants had perceived others' prejudice toward migrant wives in Korean society; the results also indicated that they wanted to participate in cultural festivals and gain knowledge of other cultures. The majority of the participants endorsed a uni-directional perspective on cultural adaption, and they thought of migrant wives as community members. The participants' attitudes toward a multicultural society were both positive and negative, and they suggested that Korean society is moving toward a broader perspective. Implications of the study and directions for future research were discussed.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
• /
• v.21 no.1
• /
• pp.1-18
• /
• 2017

This study examined the predictors of life satisfaction of marriage migrant wives with school-aged children in South Korea. For this purpose, we draw data from the 2015 National Survey on Multi-cultural Families (NSMF). The target group was marriage migrant wives who were in a first marriage and had school-aged children (N=3,004). We used OLS regression to examine the predictors of the target group's life satisfaction with the SPSS 18.0 program. The results are as follows. First, marriage migrant wives with school-aged children had maintained their marriage for at least 14 years. They were satisfied with their relationships with both their spouses and their children. Also, they were satisfied with their spouse's child care roles. They did not support the multi-cultural policy of assimilation. Their Korean proficiency was slightly higher than the middle level. More than half had jobs and had not attended a parent meeting. Second, although they were satisfied with their everyday lives, their levels of life satisfaction were less than that of migrant wives with children below 5 years of age. Third, all variables explained 38.8% of the life satisfaction experienced by marriage migrant wives with school-aged children. Satisfaction with their spouses, subjective health, satisfaction of spouse's child care role, monthly family income, satisfaction with their children, experience attending a parents meeting, and Korean proficiency were positively associated with the life satisfaction of this target group. The findings of this study are significant because they can provide certain implications for family life education and policy within a multi-cultural society.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
• /
• v.41 no.1
• /
• pp.27-40
• /
• 2016

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to identify the correlation coefficient of knowledge about multicultural, and attitude toward migrant wives by nursing Students. Methods: Research participants of this study were 212 students attending nursing university in Seoul, Gyeonggi-do, Jeollanam-do. A self-report instrument was used to measure knowledge about multicultural and attitudes toward migrant wives. Descriptive statistics, t-test, Mann-Whitney test, ANOVA and Pearson's correlation analysis with SPSS/Win 20.0 were used. Results: The mean knowledge about multicultural was 8.10 out of 13 and the mean attitudes toward migrant wives was 2.45 out of 5. Factors affecting knowledge about multicultural were age. Factors affecting attitudes toward migrant wives were age, residential district, experience of overseas trip, experience of living abroad and foreign language fluency. There was a positive correlation between knowledge about multicultural and attitudes toward migrant wives. Conclusion: Developing knowledge about multicultural and positive attitudes toward migrant wives is necessary in nursing school curricula. Therefore, nursing educator should make actual and effective education program.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
• /
• v.22 no.3
• /
• pp.421-436
• /
• 2013

International marriage is composed over 10% among total marriage in Korea. This study tried to know what kinds of social networks, especially transnational networks, the immigrant wives use for the process of being married and for the adjusting to marriage and Korean culture, and how their Korean families also are affected by the transnational networks. For the purposes of this study FGI and the interviews were applied for the immigrant wives, the multicultural husbands and the specialist groups in metropolitan city DaeGu. 18 migrant interviewees from Vietnam, China, Philippine, etc. were collected by the snow-ball sampling. 5 husbands were collected from the self-help meeting in multicultural families support center. The transnational networks of the immigrant wives in DaeGu were deterritorialized and reterritorialized actively. Migrant wives managed the close relationship with their family members of motherland, and had the networks sticky with relatives, friends, and other fore-immigrant wives from the same countries. Their migrations are characterized as 'chain migration'. Even though they acquired the Korean nationality, they have the transnational identities. They and their Korean families are interrelated and internetworked in exchanging economic resources as goods and money, human beings, love, child caring, foods and culture over local boundaries.

• Journal of Family Relations
• /
• v.23 no.2
• /
• pp.157-177
• /
• 2018

Objectives: The study aims to develop an understanding of the experience of migrant husbands with their South Korean in-laws, specifically from the perspective of migrant husbands from developing countries who reside in South Korea. Method: In total, 13 semi-structured interviews were carried out. Results: The themes drawn from the interview data were "attempting to be accepted as sons-in-law by the in-laws," "interacting closely with in-laws," and "building a nest of their own." When it comes to "struggling to be recognized as sons-in-law" by their Korean families, the migrant husbands in this study met with a high level of opposition from in-laws and sometimes their own family members, made considerable efforts to be accepted as sons-in-law, and then were finally accepted as sons-in-law (although not every migrant husband achieved this). Regarding "interacting closely with in-laws," migrant husbands tried to be recognized as real family members, became hyoja (filial sons) for the sake of their wives and children, and felt a burden about mismatched expectations regarding family roles and obligations. Regarding the final theme, "building a nest of their own," the men tried to be themselves, to attain an equal position to their in-laws, and to maintain a moderate distance between themselves and their in-laws. Conclusions: The study has significant implications for existing government programs designed for multicultural families and how they can be made more inclusive, as well as how new programs can help to improve the relationships between Korean in-laws and migrant husbands.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
• /
• v.9 no.5
• /
• pp.281-290
• /
• 2018

The purpose of this study is to investigate hospital nurses' attitude toward migrant wives, the nurses' cultural knowledge, and their cultural nursing behavior, to analyze the relations between them, and to find the factors influencing their cultural nursing behavior. A questionnaire was given to 161 nurses in two general hospital in S city from April 1 to April 30, 2017. The results were evaluated by the SPSS/SIN 21.0 program. As a result, the hospital nurses' attitude toward immigrant wives scored 2.70 out of 4 points; cultural knowledge 0.51 out of 1 points; their cultural nursing behavior 3.04 out of 5 points. Cultural nursing behavior has significantly positive correlation with their cultural knowledge. Cultural knowledge, religion, and position in hospital were found to be the factors influencing their cultural nursing behavior. These influential factors explained their cultural nursing behavior 20.9%. In order to improve hospital nurses' cultural nursing behavior, it is necessary to provide continuous multi-cultural education to improve their knowledge, and to offer various convergence programs to give them more opportunities to interact multi-cultural persons.

• The Southeast Asian review
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.31-72
• /
• 2010

This study is to explain the nature of transnational activities being involved in by Filipina intermarriage migrants in Korea by examining the institutional backgrounds of market, society and the state. The increasing number of Filipina intermarriage with Korean coincides with the advance of liberal market economy, which governs internal and bilateral interactions between and among the three institutions in both countries. While existing various reasons for engaging in intermarriage, a significant number of Filipina wives in Korea ventured into it with uncertain expectations that they might earn better lives and could support their families. Such hopes usually turn out in vain when they meet the real lives in Korea. It is mainly because their spouses in Korea would rather be those who left behind in the marriage market due to their lack of competitiveness. Filipina wives are also suffering from social isolation caused by language and other barriers such as family relations or rural life they might settle in. Their transnational activities usually tend to be their effort to breakthrough their unexpected condition of difficult lives in Korea. They usually make use of transnational sort of community activities to cultivate chances to engage in bread earning activity. Migrant's transnational activity has a great impact on sociocultural changes in the country of origin and of arrival. Transnational activity provides migrants with economic opportunities, and uplifts self-esteem as well. Intermarriage couples, especially with Southeast Asian wives, and their offsprings show a tendency of downward assimilation to Korean society. Korean state policy toward them should not simply apply undiscriminated assimilation theory, but take into account their possible strength of transnational identity with which they could find a means to integrate themselves successfully into the mainstream Korean society.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
• /
• v.14 no.1
• /
• pp.40-53
• /
• 2008

A case study has been conducted on the changes in the identity and agency of international marriage migrant women who experienced a shift from a immigrant worker to a foreign spouse and a Korean citizen. The life histories of the eight female migrants living in Gumi area, a representative inland industrial complex in Korea, have been investigated by in-depth interview. The aim is to examine how the female migrants reconstruct and interpret their lives. The results reveal that the identy of a female migrant is flexible depending on her social positionality. The identities established from the past experiences in their native countries have been changed by their situations and conditions in Korea. The female immigrants recognize that their problems have been an important issue both in government policy and mass media. However, the female migrants express a strong revolt against the fact that they are considered as underclass victims or innocent people from underdeveloped countries. This implies their ambivalence toward international marriage that they selected subjectively. There is a finding to show a new possibility; the Transnational Marriage & Family Support Center supported by Government may provide a good ground for the female migrants to be a active group agent. The results illustrate that the international marriage migrant women could not be classified into a single group as wives. Called for are diverse researches reflecting the complex situations of migrant women.