Community-based social service utilization of marriage migrants in Korea: Focusing on differences by women’s country of origin*

ABSTRACT

While social services for marriage migrant women have proliferated in the past few years, research on the use of those services remains limited. This study examines factors associated with women’s use of multiple types of services, focusing on the effects of women’s country of origin. We use Gelberg–Andersen’s behavioral model for the theoretical framework and exploit the 2015 National Survey on Multicultural Families for analyses. The results from multi-group analyses reveal that Korean-Chinese, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Filipina women all used services in systematically different patterns, and that different factors were associated with service use depending on women’s country of origin. Implications for practice and policies are provided based on the findings.

KEYWORDS:

• Marriage migrant women
• Country of origin
• Social service use

Notes

¹ This study uses country of origin as proxy for ethnicity, as the data used for this study do not contain information on their ethnic backgrounds. Korean-Chinese are included in the sample for several reasons. First, they constitute one of the largest groups among the marriage migrant population. Second, because of their shared language and cultural background with Koreans, their acculturation patterns and service utilization behavior may differ from those of women from other countries. Previous studies have demonstrated that Korean-Chinese in general are least likely to use the services (Kim, 2013; Shon, 2014), though the factors leading to their service utilization or non-utilization remain unclear.

² While trained interviewers are instructed to conduct face-to-face interviews using a structured questionnaire, foreign-born residents were also provided with a separate questionnaire translated in the language of their choice if requested. The questionnaires are available in nine different languages including English, Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese (Chung et al., 2016).