• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.69-84
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to develop and evaulate improvement of marital relationship for immigrant women's husbands. They who play important role have much more resources than wifes in Korean society and establish a happier home through trying to adapt marital relationship. It needs to escape focusing on only immigrant education and program and have to extend to immigrants' family members including husband. The program procedure was implemented for 14 immigrant women's husbands every Friday for 2 hours from Feb, 2007 to Mar, 2007. To evaluating effects of program the pre test and post test was analyzed. The program was operated by researcher, center worker and volunteer who have much practiticing experiences about immigrants. The program of sessions is perception of intermarriage, understanding of wife's country culture, open communication, conflict resolution and child rearing attitude. As the results of the analysis, there were significant differences of the increases in the area of perception of intermarriage, open communication and child rearing attitude. Finally, this study suggests that understanding of wife's country culture and conflict resolution of the program be modified by future social work practitioners and researchers in order to make the program more effective.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.1181-1198
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• 2009

The purposes of this study were to find the general trends of individuals, marital relation, migrated-cultural variables and abuse, and to analyze the effects of the individual, marital relation, and migrated-cultural variables on the abuse. The subjects were 174 immigrant women. The data was analyzed with frequency, t-test, ANOVA and multiple regression by SPSS. The major findings were as follows; Physical abuse amongst immigrant women was significantly different according to residence and income factors, psychological abuse was dependent on residence and native country, sexual abuse was dependent on education level, and total abuse was dependent on residence and native country. The level of abuse (range 1-4) was 2.07, Psychological abuse was the highest with 2.23, physical abuse was next with 1.92 and sexual abuse was 1.78. All the abuse types were influenced by the husband's alcohol behavior, communication efficiency, marital conflict, and knowledge of Korean culture. In conclusion, it is important to protect immigrant women who have been abused. So understanding, reasonable coping, prevention programs and counseling of abuse victims were provided to immigrant women.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.219-239
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• 2011

The objective of this study is to investigate the influence of husbands' sex role stereotype, intercultural sensitivity, and the acceptance of wife's culture on immigrant women's acculturation, marital satisfaction and life satisfaction in multi-cultural family in Korea. The data of 100 immigrant women and their husbands were analyzed. Husbands' mean age was 41.6 and wifes' mean age was 29.6. The results of this study are as follows. The first, husbands' sex role stereotype, intercultural sensitivity and the acceptance of wives' culture together explain only marginalization among wives' acculturation(integration, assimilation, segregation, and marginalization) significantly, but individual variable's effect was not significant. The second, husbands' acceptance of wives' culture explain marital and life satisfaction significantly. Third, only marginalization among four types of acculturation explain significantly marital and life satisfaction significantly. integration explain only life satisfaction significantly. Husbands' sex role stereotype is related with the acceptance of their wives' culture and their intercultural sensitivity negatively. In wives' acculturation, there is low positive correlation between assimilation and integration and moderate negative correlation between assimilation and marginalization. This study revealed that the marital and life satisfaction of immigrant women in intercultural family in Korea are explained by acculturation which was influenced by their husband's acceptance of wives' culture and they are not only immigrant wife's problem but multicultural problem.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.417-421
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• 2009

The number of international marriages in South Korea has drastically increased since the year 2000, and among these, the proportion of couples with a Korean husband and foreign wife accounts for more than 70%. At the same time, the number of children resulting from an international marriage has also risen dramatically; this tendency is especially evident in preschool children below 6 years of age. This review article shows some of the similarities and differences between children from international marriages and those from non-international households with respect to their growth, development and language skills.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.101-117
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• 2011

This research is intended to explore the adaptation process for immigrant women and their Korean spouses through a qualitative method. It is aimed at understanding how immigrant women and their Korean spouses have adjusted to their lives in Korea over the last 10 years and how they have dealt with difficulties in the adaptation process. The participants were 15 intermarried couples consisting of a Southeast Asian wife and a Korean husband. They got married through matchmakers and have children between the ages of 8 and 13. The study carried out in-depth interviews. To analyze the interview data, the qualitative software program Nvivo8 was used. The results showed that immigrant women and their Korean spouses experienced confusion at first. They struggled adapting to each other's lifestyles and made efforts to establish harmony. In the end, they made their own family identity as a multicultural family. The study widens the understanding of multicultural families by focusing on both wives and husbands. Also, the use of the Nvivo8 software strengthens the reliability of the data analysis. The results will contribute to providing interracial couples with the adaptive strategies.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.9
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• pp.47-62
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• 2014

This study is focused on increasing of population aging and multicultural families in Korea. This study is conducted to figure out the marital satisfaction of marriage immigrant wives having elderly husband and to verify the effect of the social service and human support. This analysis was used in the '2009 National Multicultural Families Survey' data is at least 65 years of age, married immigrant spouses wife 236 case. Descriptive statistics were performed for statistical analysis and hierarchical regression techniques. The effective variables of the marriage immigrant wives include the experience of discrimination, subjective health condition, education for social adjustment, whether an adviser is Korean when they face difficulties, and whether the frequency of contacts made with their families in homeland is more than once to three times a year. Analysis shows that these things works as the effect variable of marital satisfaction.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.33-48
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to explore factors related to marital satisfaction among immigrant wives compared to Korean wives of Korean men. Participants included 409 immigrant wives married to Korean men and 474 Korean wives married to Korean men, both currently living in Korea. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that there were different sets of variables that predicted marital satisfaction for each group. Egalitarian decision-making was a significant predictor of marital satisfaction for immigrant wives only, whereas for Korean wives, it was the level of their depressive symptoms that was significantly but negatively associated with marital satisfaction. A wife's positive perception of her husband's communication style emerged as the strongest predictor of marital satisfaction for both Korean and immigrant wives. In addition, indicators of the cultural context of immigrant women (i.e., longer stay in Korea and greater frequency of experiencing discrimination in the past year due to their foreign appearance or status) emerged as significant predictors of immigrant wives' marital satisfaction even after taking demographic factors, depressive symptoms, and couple-level factors into account. The findings of this study contribute to existing research by (1) comparing the models of marital satisfaction for Korean wives and immigrant wives, identifying unique predictors for each group, and (2) examining the effect of cultural adaptation on the martial satisfaction of immigrant wives.

• Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.451-484
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• 2013

This study investigated the factors that influence subjective well-being of immigrant wives in Korea. We initially grouped the factors into 3 categories: personal, domestic, and social. For personal factors, we included couple's age difference, reason for entry, religion, marital duration, employment status, economical status, acculturation to Korean culture, acquisition of Korean language, and ego-resiliency. For domestic factors we included marriage process, reason for marriage, husbands' understanding of wife's native language, husbands' understanding of wife's culture, marital satisfaction, existence of children, head of the household, and parenting efficacy. Finally for social factors, awareness of welfare services and systems, use of public institutions and civil organizations, and participation in social groups were included. We recruited 256 immigrant wives who live in Asan City, Chungnam Province and the data were analyzed by multiple linear regression. The factors that statistically significant were: ego-resiliency, marital duration, acculturation to Korean culture and economic status among personal factors; parenting efficacy, marital satisfaction and marriage process (married without a matchmaker) among domestic factors; participation in self-help group of women from the same mother country, awareness of welfare services and systems, participation in hobby club, and participation in fraternal/religious society among social factors. It is hoped that this paper will yield general insights into subjective well-being of immigrant wives and may help them to develop inner talent and strength.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.1-26
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• 2008

The main purpose of this paper is to explore the impacts of foreign wife status and social capital on fertility among a group of Chinese, Vietnamese and Japanese wives in Korea. Attention is focused on the argument that minority group status and immigrant social capital exerts an independent effect on fertility, apart from socioeconomic and demographic variables. It is hypothesized that the level and tempo of fertility of foreign wives reflect their social disadvantages and the adaptation process. Micro-data from two socio-demographic surveys were utilized to analyze the reproductive outcomes of foreign and native wives in Korea. Results of analyses reveal that foreign wives in Korea tend to have fewer children compared to native Korean women. It was found that a foreign wife's access to social capital significantly facilitates reproductive behavior. Those who engage themselves more in voluntary activities, have more friends in Korea, and possess better and higher-quality social networks tend to have more children. Foreign wives with a high degree of integration or assimilation to the new surroundings were also found to have more children than other foreign wives.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.250-265
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• 2014

The purpose of the phenomenological study was to explore the sense of pressure shown from the family adjustment experience according to mothers-in-law's perception and to enrich our understanding about multicultural families. In order to accomplish the purpose of research, 5 mothers-in-law with married immigrant women participated. Data were collected through in-depth interview. In addition, the data were analyzed by a Colaizzi's phenomenological analysis. The findings showed that the meaning of family adjustment experience in mothers-in-law with married immigrant women were identified as 31 themes and 7 categories. The 7 categories consisted of "The sense of pressure of son's marriage", "The sense of pressure of an unsatisfactory daughter-in-law", "The sense of pressure of unfair treatment by a daughter-in-law", "The sense of pressure of living with concerned son and his wife", "The sense of pressure of having a foreign daughter-in-law", "The sense of pressure of dependnet daughter-in-law's parents", "The sense of pressure of the future". Based on the findings, we discussed the meaning of family adjustment experience in mothers-in-law with married immigrant women. And lastly, this results made suggestions for the social welfare policies and practices for them and their families.