Abstract
Historically, Korea has been one of the world’s few ethnically homogeneous nations. However, the situation has been changing rapidly since 1990s. All the statistics indicate that more and more foreigners are coming to Korea in search of the “Korean Dream” and more and more foreign women are marrying Korean men. A steep increase of international marriages between immigrant women and Korean men draws our particular attention as such phenomenon involves dramatic socio-cultural changes. The purpose of this paper is to shed some light on this recent phenomenon of Korean men marrying immigrant women. In this paper, statistical trends of inter-ethnic marriage in Korea since 1990s were documented and analyzed. Such factors as demographic changes in Korea, inequality among nations, and globalization were considered in the analysis.
This article is a revised version of the paper presented at the International Conference on “Migration in China and Asia” held in Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China, during May 20–21, 2010.
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- 1.
One rural county, Boeun-gun in Chungcheongbuk-do, became the first in the country to record an international marriage rate of 40 % in 2005; of 205 marriages registered there, 82 were international unions.
- 2.
The unusual thing about son preference is that it rises sharply at second and later births. The use of sex-selective abortion is largely responsible for this phenomenon.
- 3.
In 2006, for example, 40 Vietnamese women became residents of the Haenam County of South Jeolla Province after the county offered 5 million won(US $ 5,380) in wedding subsidy per single man as part of its ‘Program for Marriage of Rural Single Males.’ However, although Haenam County budgeted 150 million won for the wedding subsidy, it planned to spend only 21 million won total, as some of the subsidies were just transferred directly to international marriage brokers. A Haenam County council member complained that the county program for the marriage of rural bachelors is turning into a cash-maker for marriage brokers (http://english.hani.co.kr/popus/print.hani?ksn=214674).
- 4.
We’re witnessing a taste of thing to come even now. In Jeollabuk-do, 755 multiracial students are enrolled in area schools. At one school, Mupung Elementary School in Muju-gun, four of the incoming eight first graders are multiracial.
- 5.
Rural communities have already entered the stage of “super-aged societies”; in 2004, some 29 % of the population of Korea’s rural communities was over the age of 65. The relative lack of social infrastructure in the countryside has led what few younger women there are to avoid marrying rural men. With these trends working against rural communities, the mass immigration of foreign women as brides is not only necessary to maintain the local tax base and labor pool, but also essential in ensuring the survival of the communities themselves.
- 6.
This is causing tensions in a hitherto homogeneous society, which is often hostile to the children of mixed marriages.
- 7.
In another study conducted among university students later times, the researchers found that the students were having very positive attitudes toward international marriage, although they had some negative feelings toward international migrant brides. See Kim, Chon-bae and In-sook Oem 2011. “A Study on the University Students’ Recognition on the International Marriage.” Journal of Welfare Administration (복지행정논총). 21(1). 51 p–73 p.
- 8.
Sungkyunkwan University professor Kim Tong-won, speaking to the JoongAng Ilbo, warned that if mainstream Korean society is unable to make room for the nation’s multiracial community, it’s not inconceivable that race riots like those that took place in France in 2010 could eventually happen in Korea.
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Choi, H. (2014). Socio-Cultural Consequences of International Marriages in Korea: Emergence of Multiculturalism?. In: Zhang, J., Duncan, H. (eds) Migration in China and Asia. International Perspectives on Migration, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8759-8_6
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