• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.41-53
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• 2018

Purpose: This study was conducted to identify the factors affecting on unmet healthcare needs of married immigrant women, especially who are working in South Korea. Methods: It is designed as a cross-sectional descriptive study. We analyzed data from 8,142 working married immigrant women to the 'National Survey of Multicultural Families 2015.' Based on Andersen's health behavior model, logistic regression was conducted to determine the predictors of unmet healthcare need. Results: The prevalence of unmet healthcare needs among the subjects was 11.6%. In multivariate analysis, significant predictors of unmet needs included existence of preschooler, country of origin, period of residence in predisposing factors, monthly household income, helpful social relationship, social discrimination, Korean proficiency, working hour per week in enabling factors, and self-rated health, experience of grief or desperation in need factors. Conclusion: The association between labor-related factors and unmet healthcare needs of marriage immigrant women currently working was found from nationally representative sample. Support policies for immigrant women working more than legally defined hours and having preschooler should be supplemented to reduce unmet healthcare needs. In addition, eradicating discrimination in workplace, enlarging social relationship, and developing culturally competent nursing services tailored to health problems caused by labor are needed.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.18-26
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• 2008

Purpose: To assess the health status and health behavior characteristics of immigrant women married to Koreans. Method: A descriptive research design was employed. Fifty female marriage immigrants who were clients of the visiting health program at W public health center were recruited. After full consent, direct interview with a structured questionnaire and physical measurements were conducted by visiting health nurses. Descriptive statistics were utilized. Results: All of the subjects showed normal blood sugar. 25.7% of them exhibited extreme body weight condition of either obesity or low body weight by BMI. 36.4% had pre-hypertension stage and 15.9% had first stage of hypertension. Only two of the women had been diagnosed with hypertension and treated by a doctor. Almost all (95%) of them perceived their general health status as good or moderate. Most of them did not exercise, smoke or drink. Regarding dental care, no subject brushed before lunch. and only one did between meals. About 30$\sim$60% of subjects had undergone health screening. Conclusion: Health education is needed for immigrant women married to Koreans to enhance their health behavior, prevent life style disease and improve their health.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.215-240
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• 2009

This paper focuses on how Younghill Kang internalizes whiteness ideology through interracial romance to build himself as an oriental Yankee and recover his masculinity in his autobiographical novel East Goes West. This paper also focuses on Kang's strategy of racial and cultural hybridity presented in this novel. The theoretical basis of my argument is a mixture of Fanon's psychoanalysis in his Black Skin, White Masks, Bhabha's notion of mimicry in The Location of Culture, and notions related to race and gender of some Asian critics such as Patricia Chu, Jinqi Ling, and Lisa Lowe. In East Goes West, white women appear as "ladder of success" of successful assimilation and serve as cultural mediators and instructors and sometimes adversaries who Korean male immigrants have to win to establish identities in which Americanness, ethnicity, and masculinity are integrated. However, three Korean men, Chungpa Han, To Wan Kim, George Jum, who fall in love with white women fail to win their beloveds in marriage. George Jum fails to sustain a white dancer, Jun' interest. Kim wins the affection of Helen Hancock, a New England lady, but Kim commits suicide when he knows Helen killed herself because her family doesn't approve their relationship. Han's love for Trip remains vague, but Kang implies Han will continue his quest for "the spiritual home" as the name of "Trip." In East Goes West, Kang also attempts to challenge the imagining of a pure, monolithic, and naturalized white dominant U.S. Culture by exploring the cultural and racial hybridity shown by June and the various scenes of Halem in the 1920s. June who works for a Harlem cabaret is a white woman but she wears dark makeup. Kang questions the white face of America's self-understanding and racial constitution of a unified white American culture through June's racial masquerade. Kang shows that like Asian and black Americans, the white American also has an ambivalent racial identity through June's black mimicry and there is no natural and unchanging essence behind one's gender and race identity constitution.

• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.173-189
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• 2015

The Korean society has been dramatically changed in its population, with rapidly increasing number of multicultural families through international marriages. The objective is to investigate the dietary patterns as an acculturation for multicultural families in urban area. The research target was 89 marriage immigrant females in Daejeon, in whom 50.6 % was in their twenties and 49.4 % was in their thirties to forties. 39.3% of the subjects was from China and 28.1 % from Vietnam, which showed similar pattern to the ratio of marriage immigrants' homeland in Korea. As age goes higher, cultural adaptation in Korea was the integration pattern. Marriage immigrant females from Vietnam showed the highest rates of marginalization pattern as cultural adaptation. Moreover, those with longer marriage duration and with children tend to show higher rates of integration pattern. 'Food attitude', 'food diversity', and 'balance life' as eating behaviors are related with acculturation. In conclusion, the multicultural families in urban area showed integration acculturation patterns, which could be influenced by their socioeconomic factors, such as residence period and Korean language ability and food diversity as dietary patterns factors. Further study with a quantitative analysis is needed in order to understand the effect of dietary patterns on acculturation in the multicultural families.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.678-684
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to figure out and establish the basic data that can help improve management of oral healthcare for the international marriage migrantwomen. In this sense, we surveyed questions on 237 women out of 1,300 immigrant women, who have participated the program in operation by multi-cultural household supporting center, in a fashion of face-to-face investigation and on-the-spot direct cavity inspection simultaneously from May 1th to October 31th, 2010. Collected data were electro-statistically computerized under SPSS 17.0 program and analyzed with frequency analysis, recurrence analysis and logistic regression analysis respectively. Foundings were revealed as follows; On the nationality base, show the data in the ratio of 38.8% for Vietnamese, 29.1% for Philippine, 12.2% for Chinese and 6.8% for Japanese respectively. Current oral cavity status shows in the ratio of 60% with carious tooth symptoms, 40% without carious tooth symptom. Philippine women have irregular sets of tooth in many a case. (i.e., in short of numbers of teeth, due to removing individual tooth.) Japanese ladies are indicated to have less irregular sets of tooth, in comparison with that of the other immigrants from overseas. And lastly, high-income immigrant women in general were found having less numbers of unhealthy sets of tooth. Getting older, it appears that decayed tooth symptom is on the tendency of getting less in the field of dentistry circles. Immigrant ladies living with husbands under higher education background usually are found living a life in the less ratio of having toothache. A full-time immigrant housewives, however, are living everyday life in more times of suffering with tooth disease.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.79-89
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• 2010

Objectives: This study aims to identify health status and health risks among female marriage immigrants to Korea and to provide a basis for public health strategies to address their health issues. Methods: The participants of the study were 3,069 immigrant wives. The health examination was conducted by the Korea Association of Health Promotion (KAHP) in 2008. The participants also completed self-administered questionnaires on demographic characteristics, health-related behaviors and mental health. Results: Patterns of immigrant women's health problems differed by age and country of origin. Behavior patterns also differed by their heritage, age, and years of residence in Korea. Generally Vietnamese women fell in lower ranges of disease prevalence and health risk factors in the participant group and Japanese women presented most healthy eating habits. Filipina women showed relatively high disease prevalence than any other group. Conclusion: Immigration to Korea by marriage is relatively a new phenomenon, thus continuing surveillance and research are needed to identify health risks, behavior patterns, and their relationships. Interventions and policies for the health of migrant wives, their children and families are required.

• Industry Promotion Research
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.61-67
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• 2023

This study is to suggest ways to overcome the social exclusion experienced by migrants in Korean society and achieve social integration, focusing on the fact that social exclusion continues in many fields along with the increasing number of migrants. The research results are as follows. First, the legal system related to migrants must be enacted and revised. As the number of migrants increases, various legal and institutional enactments as well as reorganization of related laws are inevitable. Immigrants should be allowed to overcome social exclusion so that their cultural uniqueness and value are recognized and preserved, and they are given the same qualifications and abilities as the residents. Second, migrants' political participation must be guaranteed. When the political participation of migrants, which is currently only open to a small part, is guaranteed, Korean society can be seen as progressing one step toward a multicultural society. Third, residents and migrants must coexist. As a premise of this, it is necessary to prepare a ground where social exclusion can be overcome so that migrants can coexist. Immigrants should be able to develop a relationship of coexistence in the reality that social exclusion is progressing in each field compared to permanent residents. In conclusion, in order for the increasing number of immigrants to settle in Korean society, social integration can be achieved only when social exclusion imposed on immigrants is overcome.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.22-30
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• 2009

This study aimed to examine nutritional status and similarities of diets between Vietnamese female immigrants and Korean spouses and dietary changes of Vietnamese females after immigration. Subjects were 608 couples visiting 13 medical centers for the Cohort of Intermarried Women in Korea from November 2006 to November 2007. Anthropometric and biochemical measurements were obtained and dietary intakes were assessed using one-day 24-hour recall. Sixty-eight percent of wives answered there have been changes in their diets and consumptions of meats, fish, dairy products, vegetables, and fruits increased after immigration. Energy intakes of wives and spouses were 1491.7 kcal and 1788.8 kcal, respectively, showing most couples (80.1%) consumed less than the Korean estimated energy requirements. More than half of the couples were below the Korean estimated average requirements of zinc, vitamin $B_2$, and folate. The correlation coefficients between couples ranged 0.15-0.38 for unadjusted, 0.22-0.35 for per 1000 kcal, and 0.21-0.40 for energy-adjusted, respectively. The proportions of couples in the same quartiles of each nutrient intake and in the same answers of each question of Mini Dietary Assessment were about 30% across nutrients and around 50% across questions. The length of residence is related to similarities of nutrient intakes between couples: similarities decreased after 3 years of residence in Korea. In conclusion, nutritional intakes of inter-married couples were inadequate although wives reported that their dietary intakes increased after immigration. Inadequate nutrient intakes of wives were partly explained by similar diets between couples because these wives without enough adjustment to Korean culture were more likely to follow what their spouses ate. Findings from this study may be helpful to improve the nutritional status of inter-married couples and make policies and programs for them. A follow-up study should identify factors affecting inadequate nutritional status of intermarried couples and similarities of their diets.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.38-47
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• 2020

Purposes: The problem in the recent immigration policy and social policy changes for foreigners is that the preliminary analysis or research on the actual impact of the influx of foreigners has not been done enough in Korea yet.. This study is to examine the impact of the Korean health insurance finances on the influx of foreigners. Approach: This study analyzed the health insurance statistics for foreigners and overseas Koreans of the Health Insurance Corporation from 2013 to 2017. The data is the "Status of Health Insurance Premiums for Nationals, Foreigners, and Overseas Koreans from 2013 to 2017" submitted by the National Health Insurance Service to the Health and Welfare Committee during the 2018 National Audit Period. Findings: To summarize the analysis, first, the proportion of foreigners was only 1% of all subscribers (1.7% at work, 1.9% in regions) until 2017. Second, employees at work have a lower pay-to-pay ratio, and local subscribers have a higher pay-to-pay rate, regardless of nationality. Third, as immigrants are mostly concentrated in younger ages, they are healthy and use of hospitals is relatively low. Fourth, in terms of gender distribution, there are many women of childbearing age due to marriage immigration among foreign local subscribers, and more men use hospitals than workers who have a high proportion of males due to childbirth. In conclusion, the impact of immigration on health insurance finances is not large, and has a positive effect on finances. Practical Implications: If we simply consider the financial aspect, encouraging foreigners to subscribe to health insurance has a positive effect on finances. In particular, the more foreign workers are enrolled, the greater the financial gain. In particular, increasing the employment of foreign women through language education, vocational training, and employment support will help finance health insurance. One of the reasons foreign subscribers have a positive impact on health insurance finance is the low medical utilization rate. It can be said that young and healthy foreigners use fewer hospitals and clinics, but another aspect means that foreigners have difficulty using health insurance for various reasons. Therefore, various supports must be accompanied so that foreign subscribers can use medical services when necessary.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.381-388
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• 2019

In South Korea nowadays, Among the married immigrant women in Korea, the proportion of long-term residents living in Korea for more than 10 years is increasing continuously(48%), while the proportion of short-term residents who are under 5 years is decreasing(16%). However, Korean language education and related research in the Marriage and Immigration Women's Center are still focused on the initial immigrants. Therefore, we should classify married immigrant women according to their stay time in Korea, so that Korean language education and teaching materials need to be more diversified. This study focuses on married immigrant women with intermediate and advanced Korean proficiency and chooses a catalogue of Chinese characters idioms to explore the possibility and educational value of using Chinese characters Idioms in Korean education. According to the research results, Chinese characters idiom education can help married immigrant women in Korean language learning and information acquisition, interpersonal relationships and life attitudes, cultural understanding and social adaptation, child rearing and learning guidance. This is the important part of Korean language education that needs to be guided by married immigrant women. Based on this, 130 Chinese characters idioms in Korean language education and textbook development centered on married immigrant women were selected and catalogue edited in four stages. It is hoped that the results of this study will serve as a reference for Korean language education research and textbook development for married immigrant women in the future.