Why Female Marriage Immigrants in Korea Feel Stressed after immigrating to Korea?

The purpose of this study was to find out what are the stressors of female marriage immigrant in Korea. Focus group interview(FGI) was conducted with 13 women who immigrated to Korea from China, the Philippines, and Vietnam through marriage. The duration of residing in Korea ranged from 2 to 9 years. FGI was conducted once to each 3 small group of 4 or 5 women. Data was analyzed by thematic analysis method to identify recurrent themes.
This research extracted 6 meaningful categorical stressor of female marriage immigrants in Korea: 1) Cultural stressor containing of culture difference and language barrier; 2) Economic stressor implicating in economic difficulties; 3) Social stressor consisting of discrimination and social isolation; 4) Family stressor containing of problems with husband and family in law; 5) Emotional stressor as a feeling anxiety; and 6) Parenting stressor identifying child rearing difficulty. This analysis suggests that that stress of female marriage immigrants should be considered in sociocultural aspects and additionally in the aspects of family relationships, economic problem, and parenting that came out from unique experience of female marriage immigrants.