Institutional Supports and Life Satisfaction: The Case of Cross-border Marriage Migrants in South Korea

Abstract

The positive influence of institutional supports from social networks on psychological well-being of immigrants is extensively acknowledged in the literature. However, immigration experiences outside the Western societies are underexplored. Using data from the 2012 Korean National Survey for Multicultural Family, I examine how institutional supports for cross-border marriage migration shape life satisfaction among female marriage migrants in South Korea. Findings reveal that levels of life satisfaction among marriage migrants married via commercially arranged marriage agencies are lower than those of female marriage migrants using interpersonal networks from kinship and friends/colleagues. Religion-motivated marriage migrants show lower levels of life satisfaction. In addition, the impacts of institutional supports on life satisfaction are mediated by marriage duration and language proficiency, indicating higher levels of satisfaction are associated with shorter marriage duration and better language proficiency; however, the impacts vary by institutional supports.

Chasing Fate & Fortune in the Borderland: Cross-Border Marriage & Migration at the Malaysian-Thai Frontier

“…Studies examining the well-being of marriage migrants in East Asia have found that this move for many cross-border brides has been anything but easy, primarily due to the typical patrilocal marital and kinship pattern. In other words, the bride, like Fatin, typically joins the husband's family in his country, creating social and cultural adjustment issues, social isolation, and discrimination -all of which make assimilation in their host societies difficult (Oh, 2018;Li & Yang, 2020). Furthermore, female migrants' dependency on their husband for economic support, as well as for the legal right to stay in the host society create unequal power dynamics in the marriage that leave them vulnerable to psychological abuse and domestic violence (Williams & Yu, 2006).…”

Level of Acculturation and Acculturative Stress Perceived by Asian Immigrant Women Married to South Korean Men

“…In South Korea, male offspring were preferred in the past because of Confucian culture. But as the standard of living in Korea raised rapidly, the employment rate of women and the number of women who did not want to marry increased, resulting in a gender imbalance in the marriage market (Oh, 2018). Due to these results, there has been a 170% increase in the number of immigrants since 2006 in Korea (Korean Statistical Information Service [KSIS], 2020).…”