National Identity and Acceptance of Foreign Immigrants as Citizen among Koreans

This study aims to examine the effect of national identity on the acceptance of foreign immigrants as citizens among Koreans. According to the existing literature, Koreans tend to hesitate to accept foreign immigrants as Korean citizens while accepting them as friends or co-workers. Although there has been a lot of interest in social distance among different ethnic groups, there are few studies examining why Koreans are so much committed to the meaning of being “citizen”. This paper focuses on the role of national identity in explaining Koreans’ hesitation to accept foreign immigrants as citizen. Since Korean hold strong national identity such as ethnic identity and national pride, they are less likely to accept other ethnic groups as the same member of nation. This paper argues that exclusive attitudes toward other ethnic groups can be understood if we examine the role of national identity.
Analyzing the 2010 Korean General Social Survey, this study examines the effect of national identity on acceptance of other ethnic groups as citizen. The results show that ethnic identity has the strongest impact on the acceptance of other ethnic groups as citizen.