Contending with neo-classical patriarchal bargain: Filipina marriage migrants’ negotiations for naturalization in South Korea

ABSTRACT

This study examines naturalization choices and processes among Filipina marriage migrants in South Korea. Drawing on interviews with 89 Filipina marriage migrants and nine of their spouses, we show how naturalization can become a site of bargaining where female marriage migrants strategize to maximize security and optimize their life options within a patriarchal host society. Citizenship is, for most marriage migrants, informally tied to their fulfillment of gendered expectations as wives, mothers and daughters-in-laws. As such, Filipina marriage migrants’ political incorporation cannot be separated from their gendered performance in the family. We also examine how personal resources such as education and employment prospects influence migrants’ bargaining potential. By focusing on the different social positions of and resources available to female marriage migrants, we show the complex ways in which both gender and human capital influences marriage migrants’ legal and substantive citizenship.

KEYWORDS:

• Marriage migration
• naturalization
• patriarchal bargain
• reactive transnationalism
• family

Acknowledgment

We are grateful to the editors and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions on this article. Our deepest gratitude goes to all the participants of this study who generously shared their stories and made this research possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The Ministry of Government Legislation (http://www.moleg.go.kr/knowledge/monthlyPublication?mpbLegPstSeq=129591).

2. The revision was made to Nationality Law by Act No. 10275 to allow certain group of people to hold multiple nationalities, including marriage migrants.

3. Korea Immigration Service Press Release published in 6 July 2012.

4. All names of individuals are pseudonyms to protect the respondents’ identity.

5. Twelve women were automatically granted citizenship because they married prior to the 1997 amendment of Nationality Law. Another two migrants reported that their husbands applied for their citizenship because they “didn’t want to be bothered by [spousal visa] renewals.”

6. The other three women were either newly married or had step children from the husbands’ previous marriages and thus received little pressure to bear biological children.

7. Approximately 27.5% of female marriage migrants reported living with their in-laws in 2009 (KIHSA 2010). This is higher than that of Korean families as a whole (5.7%) (MOGEF 2015). Among those in rural areas, approximately 41.3% reported living with in-laws while the rate was only about a half in urban areas (21.4%).

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this article was partially provided by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports Science and Technology, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, KAKENHI Grant Number [18K12917].

Notes on contributors

Ilju Kim

Ilju Kim is Assistant Professor of Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies at Waseda University. Her recent project was political incorporation of marriage immigrants in South Korea. She currently examines dual citizenship practices of marriage immigrants.

Zoua M. Vang

Zoua M. Vang is Associate Professor of Sociology at McGill University. She holds a PhD from Harvard University. Her scholarship focuses on immigrant integration, the healthy immigrant effect, racial/ethnic health disparities, and Indigenous maternal infant health.