In industrialized Korea, urban low-income Korean men engaged in an unskilled job is being marginalized in the unstable labor market. It is increasingly difficult for marginalized Korean men to marry in the Korean traditional family structure where the...
In industrialized Korea, urban low-income Korean men engaged in an unskilled job is being marginalized in the unstable labor market. It is increasingly difficult for marginalized Korean men to marry in the Korean traditional family structure where the man should be in a higher social position than the woman. Korean men who have passed the marriageable age choose marriage to a young emigrant woman. On the other hand, Southeast Asian women opt for immigration to overseas in order to escape from poverty and to seek a life better than the present one. For them, international marriage has emerged as a safe means of immigration. With the trend of globalization and international moves, international marriage has been increasing gradually.
Thus, this study surveyed international marriage couples of Korean man and emigrant woman, and examined their marriage satisfaction according to gender role attitude and social support perceived by them. In particular, this study aimed to provide basic materials for enhancing international marriage couples’ marriage satisfaction by measuring the influence of gender role attitude and social support on international marriage couples’ marriage satisfaction and preventing possible problems in international marriage couples. For this purpose, we sampled a total of 60 international marriage couples in Pusan including 60 Korean husbands and 60 wives from Vietnam or the Philippines.
First, husbands in their 30s showed an equal gender role attitude, and wives who had a religion showed a significant difference.
Second, husbands in their 30s who were two-year-college graduates and had a religion and a job received high social support from their parents, siblings, friends, and self-help groups. Among the wives, emigrant women with high academic qualification received from family members other than the husband various types of information for overcoming the fear of living in Korea.
Third, husbands in their 30s with high academic qualification showed high marriage satisfaction, but the wives’marriage satisfaction was not different according
to their demographical characteristics.
Fourth, when the husband had an equal gender role attitude, the couple’s marriage satisfaction was higher. However, marriage satisfaction was not different according to the wife’s gender role attitude.
Fifth, in both the husbands and the wives, marriage satisfaction was higher when emotional, informational and material social support was high from family members other than the spouse. According to support from friends and self-help groups, however, the husbands showed higher marriage satisfaction when informational and materials support was high, but the wives did not show any statistically significant difference in their marriage satisfaction. Therefore, it is concluded that international marriage couples’ marriage satisfaction is higher when social support is high from family members other than the spouse.
Sixth, gender role attitude and marriage satisfaction were correlated with each other in the husbands but not in the wives. As to the correlation between social support and marriage satisfaction, the higher social support was the higher marriage satisfaction was in both the husbands and the wives.
As proved by the results of this study presented above, social support was found to be a crucial variable for international marriage couples to enhance their marriage satisfaction. Accordingly, couple education programs and family integration education are required for effective social support. Moreover, each community should make efforts to improve inter national marriage couples’ marriage satisfaction through promoting psychosocial homogeneity, and activate self-help groups such as couple meetings, husband meetings, and wife meetings for international marriage couples’stable marriage life.