Family Life of the Marriage-based Immigrants in Korea

Korean society has experienced a fast growing international cross-border marriage during the past decades. A large group of young women from Southeast Asian countries, who resides in Korea as workers and brides, also have received increasing attention from scholars and policy makers as marriage immigrants have emerged as an important social issue in contemporary Korean society. From the 1990s, a steady increase in the visibility of immigrant foreign spouses and immigrant laborers in Korea have an unsettling effect on the long-held image of a perceived homogeneity of Korean society. This study tries to analyze important phenomena current in the up-surging international marriages in South Korea. First, it examines the recent trend in the state of marriage-based immigrants and their families. Second, the study seeks to delineate their basic socio-cultural needs by analyzing data collected by a nationwide sample survey conducted in 2006 by three sociologists, Drs, Seol, D.H., Lee, H.K. and Cho, S.N. under the grant from the Ministry of Gender Equalities in South Korea. The study thus tries to capture actual living conditions of marriage-based immigrants and their families in Korea, focusing on those factors deemed to be a prerequisite for long term policy measures toward their successful social integration