• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.19-30
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• 2019

Purpose: To identify needs for pregnancy and postpartum adaptation of Chinese immigrant women and Vietnamese immigrant women in South Korea. Methods: A descriptive research design was employed. Data were collected from 244 Chinese immigrant women and Vietnamese immigrant women from 3 provinces, 20 health care centers, and multi-cultural family support centers. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, t-test and ANOVA. Results: An average score for needs perceived by Chinese immigrant women was significantly higher than that perceived by Vietnamese immigrant women. There were significantly differences in physical and emotional adaptation after childbirth, nutrition during pregnancy, cross cultural understanding and personal respect, and adaptation daily activity during pregnancy between the 2 groups. The highest score of needs in Chinese immigrant women was for nutrition during pregnancy and that in Vietnamese immigrant women was for baby rearing and family support. Conclusion: Based on needs of pregnancy and postpartum adaption, nursing intervention program in consideration of cultural characteristics of Chinese immigrant women and Vietnam immigrant women need to be developed for their pregnancy and postpartum health care.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.407-414
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• 2011

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare birth outcomes between Korean women and immigrant women. Methods: Medical records were reviewed retrospectively from 201 immigrant women and 201 Korean women who delivered babies at K women's hospital in U city from January 2006 to December 2009. Maternal outcomes related factors included nationality, age, obstetric history, delivery type, indications of cesarean section, and complications of pregnancy and delivery. Principal neonatal outcomes were birth weight, Apgar scores, and complications of newborns. Results: Immigrant women were younger and had fewer pregnancies, abortions, and surviving children than Korean women. The rate of primary cesarean section and its indication in immigrant women were not significantly different from Korean women. However, immigrant women's newborn were more likely to have low birth weight and meconium staining. Conclusion: The results of this study indicate less equity of immigrant women in women's health care, although immigrant women's babies had lower Apgar score and more meconium staining. Nurses should help immigrant women cope with labor process effectively to prevent adverse health outcomes for their newborns.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.415-426
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• 2015

This study examines the employment experience of beauty shop owners with respect to immigrant women. A quantitative analysis was conducted through a survey of beauty shop employers. Total 400 beauty shop owners were given a questionnaire and 380 responses were obtained. IBM SPSS 21.0 was used for frequency analysis, chi-square test, t-test using obtained data. Most of the respondents reported rare immigrant women employment. In addition, they were not likely to have experienced benefits from government support system and had little knowledge of such systems. According to an the employment analysis, there were differences in business areas, locations, regions, business type, and the number of employees according to characteristics of beauty shops. Immigrant women were more likely to be employed in Gyeonggi than in Seoul and Chungcheong Province and in skincareshops than in hairshops, nailshops and make-up shops. Shops with fewer than six employees were more likely to employ immigrant women. Those shop owners has employed immigrant women were more likely to hire immigrant women. Employment intentions of employers included mitigation services for auxiliary and sharing purposes, government benefits, and solutions for employment difficulties. Government support had a positive effect on employment intentions of beauty shop employers. Employers with knowledge of government support programs were more likely to hire immigrant women. The results suggest that the government should make more efforts to promote relevant policies. Future research should identify the reasons why few immigrant women are employed.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.47-64
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• 2013

This study aimed to explore the social networks which married immigrant women have in Korea. Special attention was paid to factors such as individual, family, and migrant characteristics contributing to the different patterns of social networks. I drew upon the nationally representative data on 60,719 immigrant women married to Korean men from the '2009 Survey on Korean National Survey on Multicultural Families.' Results showed that the foreign wives tended to maintain a connection with our society through contact with their neighbors and participation in social gatherings. Findings also showed that the types of social networks by the number of trusted neighbors and meetings were diverse among the immigrant women. In addition, the factors differentiating the types were mostly associated with socioeconomic resources or Korean proficiency. More interestingly, the immigrant women's contacts with their family members in their homeland contributed to their maintenance of more active social networks. These results provided a useful outlook on the relationship between patterns of social networks and the characteristics of the married immigrant women, which eventually showed a heterogeneous nature among them. At the societal level, supportive systems for enriching immigrant women's social networks should be developed particularly in terms of not their dependency, but their potential contributions to our society.

• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.297-307
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to examine the dietary attitudes and meal management of married immigrant women according to residence period in Korea. The study was conducted by administering a questionnaire survey to 220 married immigrant women in Korea. More than one third of the immigrant women who stayed in Korea less than 3 years tended to eat a limited variety of foods. Irregularity of meal time decreased as residence time period increased (P<0.05). As immigrant women stayed longer in Korea, they became more responsible for the diet of their family (P<0.001) and had more time to share breakfast and dinner with all family members (P<0.05). Nearly half of immigrant women in all residence periods indicated their husband's family as the most influential factor in acquiring Korean foods (P<0.05). Immigrant women became more familiar with Korean cooking and recognition of nutritious foods (P<0.001) the longer they lived in Korea and more enjoyable meal times with family (P<0.05). In summary, as the period of residence in Korea increased, the dietary attitudes of immigrant women became more positive towards Korean food and diet culture. Further, immigrant women became more responsible for guiding children's dietary habits and offering healthy foods to their family as residence period increased. Therefore, the government and social programs should conduct constant and organized lessons on Korean culture and cooking according to residence period for immigrant women to build up stable and positive dietary attitudes.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.447-453
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• 2011

Purpose: The purpose of this research was to identify levels of parenting stress, depression and family support of immigrant women and to investigate the moderating effect of family support on the relationship between parenting stress and depression of immigrant women. Methods: The research was carried out with 86 immigrant women who were registered in multi-cultural support centers and receiving education in three cities South Jeolla Province. Data were collected using structured questionnaires and analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and hierarchical regression analysis with SPSS/WIN 17.0. Results: The level of parenting stress perceived by the immigrant women was moderate and the level of depression was slightly high. The level of family support as perceived by the wives was slightly high as well. There was a positive correlation between depression and parenting stress but no correlation with family support. Effects of parenting stress on depression were moderated by family support. Conclusion: Results indicate that family support provided to immigrant women moderated effects of parenting stress on depression. Accordingly, as family support is critical to immigrant women, education and other programs need to be provided to promote understanding of family support as a help for immigrant women.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.40-48
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• 2021

Purpose: This study compared maternal age at childbirth, the number of live births, and the weight of live births between Korean women and immigrant women using statistical data from the Republic of Korea for the period of 2008-2018. Methods: The analysis was conducted using data from the Microdata Integrated Service of Statistics Korea (https://mdis.kostat.go.kr/index.do). Results: Korean women and immigrant women showed a higher age at childbirth in 2018 than in 2008. The percentage of newborns of Korean women with a birth weight of less than 2.5 kg increased slightly for 3 consecutive years from 2016 to 2018, whereas for immigrant women, this percentage increased in 2017 compared to 2016 and then decreased again in 2018. Very low birth weight (less than 1.5 kg) became more common among immigrant women from 2016 to 2018. Birth at a gestational age of fewer than 37 weeks increased both among Korean and immigrant women from 2016 to 2018. In both groups, the percentage of women who had their first child within their first 2 years of marriage decreased from 2008 to 2018. Conclusion: Immigrant women had higher birth rates than Korean women, while both groups showed an increasing trend in preterm birth. Greater attention should be paid to the pregnancy and birth needs of immigrant women, and steps are needed to ensure health equity and access in order to prevent preterm births. It is also necessary to identify factors that affect preterm birth and birth of very low birth weight infants among immigrant women in the future.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.145-153
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• 2017

Objectives: This paper aimed to contribute to better oral disease prevention and practice of health behavior for immigrant women in multi-cultural families, to define missing and filled permanent teeth index of immigrant women, data from the 6th Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was used. Methods: For the immigrant women to be subjects, they needed to be born overseas, had acquired Korean citizenship as a married immigrant women, and the estimate of the number of subjects was 133,093 women. For analyzing data, SPSS 21statistical program was used. We used covariance analysis (ANCOVA) andgeneral linear models for finding the relation with the missing and filled permanent teeth index. The significance level was 0.05. Results: DMFT-index of immigrant women was 7.33 points. $R^2$ was 0.416; and increased with age, and $R^2$ was 0.126 points higher (p<0.01). In household income, 'lower' was 5.933 points lower than 'upper' (p<0.05), and in toothbrushing after lunch, 'yes' was 3.598 points lower than 'no' (p<0.01). In preventive treatment, 'yes' was 4.301 points lower than 'no' (p<0.05). Conclusions: The result of this paper is as follows: for maintaining oral health of immigrant women, we think that the government needs to develop an oral health policy and a customized education system suited to immigrant women for preventive management of dental disease in immigrant women. In addition, basic data will be provided for public dental health programs based on the result of the study.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.101-112
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• 2009

Purpose: The study was to assess marital satisfaction. needs for help, and stress of immigrant women. Method: The study employed a descriptive design of data collection. Structured Questionaires were given to the subjects; 144 women who immigrated to Korea through marriage. The data were then analyzed using $x^2$-test, one way ANOVA, and Pearson's Correlation. Results: Stress of immigrant women was significantly different according to their nationality. Housework was the highest among stress domains, the next were finance, husband, parents in law, health, children, and friends. Among these, the subject's stress was significantly correlated to the domains of husband and parents in law. The level of immigrant women's marital satisfaction was significantly different according to their job. Immigrant women's Korean proficiency was correlated to marital satisfaction and their marital satisfaction was significantly correlated to stress. Needs for help of immigrant women were rated in the following order : communication, the raising of children, culture and institution, finance, employment, socialization, marriage problem, discrimination, and self development. Conclusion: The findings of this study could be useful to help develop new programmes, and to support existing projects that help immigrant women integrate into Korean society.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.312-325
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to investigate dietary behaviors and nutritional knowledge among immigrant women in multicultural families. In addition, this study reveals a necessity for nutrition education, which is apparent to both immigrant women living in multicultural families as well as nutrition education experts. The survey was conducted with 30 immigrant women within multicultural families in Seoul. The dietary behaviors of the women were significantly different by their period of residence. The longer they had resided in Korea, the higher their dietary behavior score. However, there was no significant difference in nutrition knowledge by their period of residence. This study also conducted in-depth personal interviews with 8 immigrant women who lived in Seoul, and with 4 nutrition education experts. These interviews were performed to provide profound insights regarding the content and means of nutrition education for immigrant women. Nutrition education for immigrant women living in multicultural families should proceed at a basic level in terms of language and content, using bilingual (Korean and their native language) education materials. Education topics and content need to be developed differently according to the level of Korean comprehension and period of residence in Korea. Also, this multicultural approach should be adapted when planning nutrition education since immigrant women have various acculturation levels, and the content and means of education should be adjusted to these acculturation levels. Management after nutrition education is necessary for immigrant women who do not have sufficient understanding of the Korean language. Practical educational methods such as real cooking practices and food purchasing simulations must be developed. Finally, the results suggest that the government needs to establish a systematic plan for nutrition education among immigrant women living in multicultural families. Policy support such as training nutrition educators on multicultural individuals residing in Korea is necessary for active and effective nutritional education.