The current Korean society is facing a multi-cultural situation by various ethnicity , culture, religion, and social status. Accordingly, a variety of constituting factors are at the core of multi-cultural discourse such as migrant workers, internatio...
The current Korean society is facing a multi-cultural situation by various ethnicity , culture, religion, and social status. Accordingly, a variety of constituting factors are at the core of multi-cultural discourse such as migrant workers, international marriage immigrant women, and also multi-cultural family. Amidst these factors, issues concerning migrant workers focusing on human rights, employment, and labor rights are rapidly becoming a social problem around working places. However, one of their most important fields in daily lives which is leisure is left behind the blind spot.
Today, the migrant workers in Korea are experiencing various restrictive factors when doing leisure activities because of various social and economical constraints, despite the situation which leisure is considered as basic rights for everyone, regardless of ethnicity, culture, social status, and jobs. Migrant workers as a member of the Korean society have the rights to be provided with the opportunity to improve their egos, promote work motivations, and fulfill their position as the player of this society through sound leisure activities.
Starting from these issues, this study focused on their leisure life and leisure constraints of Vietnamese migrant workers who account for the big share among migrant workers living in Korea. So, I analyzed 4 leisure activities which they prefer including social relationship activities, sports, using mass media, and outdoors activities, along with features which can be shown through their leisure activities and factors which react as constraint for these activities. The followings are the analyzed results.
First, the leisure activities of Vietnamese migrant workers show close relationship with their social status. It was found that their leisure activities were mostly related to low-cost and popular activities. This reflects the situation which they are limited to physical resources, under peripheral conditions as socially alienated status and labor market.
Second, along with connecting networks, the social capital plays an important role in Vietnamese migrant worker's leisure life. Apart from using mass media, most leisure activities were enjoyed focused and continued by connecting networks. Among these, self-helping communities and migrant workers's native country communities which formed by hobbies and friendship·solidarity act as propulsion for their leisure life.
Third, in terms of leisure activities for Vietnamese migrant workers, they both preferred leisure patterns which show their national identity, along with mixed features by absorbing Korean culture during their stay in Korea.
Finally, forth, demographical and sociological variables controlled participation, frequency, and participating forms of leisure activities of Vietnamese migrant workers. Also, influences of those variables showed different influence according to each pattern.
As a result of the limitations for leisure activities, the most frequently experienced constraints which Vietnamese migrant workers faced were structural factors, such as lack of time, economic conditions, language barrier and information access, the difference of leisure culture, and ideological·value factors on leisure. Based on these factors, 4 kinds of vitalizing measures are needed to provide their leisure activities in the nearest future, including governmental systems and policies, the role of localities, enhanced consciousness on multi-culture, and social tolerance.