The Effect of Children’s Behavior on Foreign Immigrant Wives’ Quality of Life in Korea

Abstract

As the number of international marriages increased in Korea, there have been many new problems, such as the ones that are related to what the foreign immigrant wives go through as well as the problems that they experience as multicultural families. The ones that seem to stand out most are the foreign wives’ difficulty dealing with their children, the children’s inability to adapt to the society and the social discrimination that both the foreign wives and their children experience. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to find out how the children’s behavior affect the foreign wives’ quality of life, thereby attempting to provide basic data for developing new programs to help improve the foreign immigrant wives’ and their children’s quality of life. The participants were 323 foreign immigrant wives who are taking care of their own children, and some of the factors that may affect their quality of life were children’s health condition, wives’ degree of satisfaction on their children, themselves, and their relationship with their children. The higher their assessment on their children’s behavior, the better their overall quality of life. There needs to be a program development for diagnosing childcare problems, not just for the foreign wives but to educate both the foreign wives and their children as well. Not only will this help improve their overall relationship, but it will also increase the children’s self-esteem and pride of their mom.