• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.111-129
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• 2012

This study aims to identify the motives of Cambodian marriage immigrants and their spouses in order to determine the factors that are needed for them to experience a successful marriage and a happy family life in Korea. This study's findings have been achieved through in-depth interviews with 10 married Cambodian female marriage immigrants and nine of the women's husbands. The following factors play a key role. First, the social environment in Cambodia is generally less developed than it is in Korea. Therefore, the immigrants tend to easily adapt to the advanced culture they encounter in Korea. Second, the patriarchal culture in Korea seems to be changing. Thus, Korean females are more respected now than they have been in the past. The Korean mothers-in-law and fathers-in-law appreciate their daughters-in-law and are trying to be more caring rather than treating them with prejudice that, in the past, had been leveled against foreigners. These factors help the Cambodian immigrants adapt to the Korean culture. Third, multicultural family support centers have become the place where these marriage immigrants learn about Korean culture and socialize with other immigrants. The husbands of these women actively participate in marriage counseling and family counseling, and they are also willing to understand the complexity of a multicultural society and the importance of family.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.153-163
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• 2024

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the experiential meaning of child-rearing for marriage immigrant women in Korea in the context of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Methods: Using the hermeneutic descriptive phenomenology framework developed by Colaizzi, 10 marriage immigrant women rearing preschool and school-age children were invited through purposive and snowball sampling from two multicultural support centers in Korea. The participants were rearing one or two children, and their original nationalities were Vietnamese, Japanese, Cambodian, and Chinese. Individual in-depth, face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were conducted from September 1 to November 30, 2021. We extracted significant statements from the transcripts, transformed these into abstract formulations, and organized them into theme clusters and themes to authentically capture the essence of the participants' subjective experiences. Results: Four theme clusters with 14 themes were derived. The four theme clusters identified were "navigating child healthcare alone," "guilt for not providing a social experience," "worry about media-dependent parenting," and "feelings of incompleteness and exclusion." This study explored the perspectives of mothers raising children as marriage migrant women who experienced physical and emotional health crises due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusion: The findings underscore that marriage immigrant women encountered heightened challenges in managing their children's health and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic due to linguistic and cultural barriers limiting access to healthcare and information. Additionally, these women experienced considerable emotional stress from perceived inadequacies in providing a holistic social and developmental environment for their children under extensive social restrictions.