• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.205-221
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• 2009

My concern was to explore how the Korean 'wild geese families' functioned to maintain 'familyhood' in spite of spatial separation by using a qualitative approach. I used personal narratives from eleven 'geese mothers' living in the United States. Family paths across time were analyzed to understand their complicated nature. Respondents adopted some coping strategies to obtain the flexibility and the stability for relocating their transnational lives. These were 1) communications, 2) relocation of household work, and 3) reinterpretation of 'sacrifice.' It seemed that their family paths become either the continuous type (prolong their stay) or the discontinuous type (not prolong their stay). These were shaped by complex individual, familial, and social forces which affected differently according to the steps of family life cycles. Therefore, this study showed that the Korean 'wild geese family' did not move toward the uni-direction with the same experiences and nature. More importantly, it is noteworthy to acknowledge that the prevalence of 'wild geese family' reveals the dynamic interactive nature of the family, i.e., actively responding to the changes and challenges from the diverse circumstances. It is inferred that the social and cultural factors such as the class mobility, the education system, and the values may influence the family life style.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.171-189
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• 2007

The purpose of this ethnography is to describe and analyze the process of becoming a wild geese mother. Thirteen mothers from New York, California, and Texas of U.S.A. were interviewed with an unstructured questionnaire. There are several different patterns of the process; 'the short term', 're-departure after returning to Korea', 'a step to initiate their family's immigration', 'sudden and unintentional'. In the first stage of the family living rearrangement, the main issues are about the wider free world, proper time for leaving and proper period for staying, where to live and my husband's independent living. The wild geese mothers perform the concrete tasks about the everyday living for the new mother-child family in the foreign country. They report their subjective interpretation for their new life.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.11-23
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• 2012

This qualitative study attempts to analyze the separation experiences of wild geese families from a social exchange perspective. The participants of this study were 16 mothers who lived apart from their partners for the purpose of educating their offspring. To collect data, in-depth interviews were conducted with the mothers about the decision-making process and the separation experiences. The results showed that there was a unique educational factor in Korea that affected wild geese families' decision on family separation. Geese families had to face psychological inconvenience caused by negative eyes from society. In addition, the fathers suffered loneliness and had difficulties in doing household chores, and the mothers experienced an overload of child parenting. On the other hand, emotional relationship between the husband and wife was enhanced, and the friendly relationship between a mother and her children was built. The biggest reward from the wild geese families turned out to be the educational achievement of their children.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.107-133
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• 2010

This research identified the normal structures of separated families, "wild-geese families"(husbands living in Korea apart from their wives and children who are studying abroad) as we called, in Korea. In particular, this study conducted in-depth interview, using qualitative research method, with 7 wild-geese fathers (fathers who are in order to understand their experiences of separated families. The research findings classified the wild-geese father's experiences into three phases which as "decision-making," "initial," and "maintenance." These phases can be described by five higher factors. First of all, in the phase of decision-making "internal or external needs of children studying abroad at early age" was found to be a crucial factor. Liberation and deficiency as results of separation" mainly described the initial phase. In the phase of maintenance, families experience "exhausted solitary lives," "filling up the families' empty space," and "double jeopardy-worry about both reunifying the family or separating the family, as the longer they are separated."

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.32
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• pp.81-107
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• 2013

This study examines pre-college study abroad (PSA, Chogi yuhak), which is one of the fastest growing phenomena among the various efforts for Koreans to learn English. The discussion includes the reasons why PSA has become so popular in the last decade under the name of globalization, the problems it has caused, and its new impact that this phenomenon has on Korean mothers. This study argues that PSA boom provides Korean mothers with an opportunity to pursue their own self-realization by studying abroad with their school aged children. These "new wild geese" mothers, who make double investments in their own education as well as in their children's in the U.S. represent important aspects of the contemporary Korean society regarding education, gender and neoliberal social atmosphere.