Title: The Effects of Husband’s SES on International Marriage Migrant Partner’s

Health and Life Satisfaction in South Korea

Daesung Choi

a, Myungsoon Yoo

b, Youngtae Cho

b, Sanglim Lee

c, Gabriela Sanchez-Soto

a

a Department of Demography, University of Texas at San Antonio

b The Graduate School of Public Health at Seoul National University

c The Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs

Abstract. The present study examines the effects of Korean husband’s socioeconomic

status (SES) on international migrant wife’s self-reported health (SRH) and life satisfaction in

South Korea. Earlier studies show that spouse’s SES is an important factor for the respondent’s

health-related outcomes. Due to their low SES and the commercialized international marriage

process, migrant female spouses are presumed to have a high dependence on their Korean

husbands and therefore suffer a resultantly unequal relationship within the marriage. Thus, we

expect that the SES of the husband plays a significant role in determining marriage migrant’s

health and life satisfaction. The data to be used is drawn from the National Survey on

Multicultural Families 2009, conducted in Korea. This study analyzes Chinese, Vietnamese,

Filipino, Japanese and Korean Chinese female marriage migrants aged 14 and over, living in

Korea in 2009 (n=49,087). To address the independent effects of Korean husband’s SES, we

include three dimensions of covariates: foreign wife’s characteristics, Korean husband’s

characteristics and couple’s characteristics. The results from logistic regression models suggest

that there are significant disparities of SRH among female migrant partners in relation to the

Korean husband’s educational attainment even after adjusting for all other covariates, and this

effect is greater than that of the migrant women’s own educational attainment; suggesting the

Husband’s education and employment status have a positive effect on the foreign wife’s life

satisfaction, but the migrant wife’s own education was negatively associated with their life

satisfaction. There is significant interaction effect between duration of marriage and educational

difference between the couple; when migrant women have a lower educational attainment they

are more likely to show worse SRH and life satisfaction. Therefore future research on health

intervention policies aimed at international marriage migrants, should take into account the

husband’s characteristics.

Background

During the last few decades, countries in East and South East Asia have experienced dramatic

increases in international marriage migration, and it has become a highly significant type of migration

flow within the region (Jones and Shen 2008; Wang 2007). In particular, South Korea (referred to below

as ‘Korea’), Taiwan, Japan and Singapore have been the major immigrant-receiving countries, accepting a

steady increase in migrants from such international marriages since 1980 (Jones and Shen 2008). Among

these countries, the rate of increasing migration into Korea from international marriage is considerable.

According to the Korean survey of 2011, 11,605 marriages were registered as international marriages in

2000, a figure representing about three percent of all marriages in the country, but by 2010 this figure had

increased to 34,235, or almost 11% of total number of marriages for that year (Statistic Korea, 2011).

With the growing influx of marriage migrants into Korea, several characteristic marriage migration trends

emerged between Korea and other major sending countries in East and South East Asia. First, the largest

share of international marriages is between Korean males and foreign females, showing the feminization

of international migration. Until the 1990s most international marriages in Korea were Korean brides

being married to foreign males. However after the 1990s, for various reasons including changes in

Korea’s population structure and diplomatic relations, cross-border marriages in recent years have been

dominated by female migrants coming into Korea; the proportion of marriages between Korean men and

foreign women constituting about 77% of the total number of international marriages in 2010 (Kim 2008c;

Lee, Seol and Cho 2006). The second characteristic aspect is that the majority of migrating women who

marry Korean males come from less developed countries in South East Asia, such as Vietnam, the

Philippines and rural China (Jones and Shen 2008; Kim 2008c; Lee 2008; Lee, Seol and Cho 2006).

As the number of international marriages between Korean men and foreign women increased, the

health implications and issues connected to migration that are specific to women have received growing

attention from both Korean policy makers and scholars. Of particular interest has been the fact that

foreign women who marry Korean spouses are likely to migrate at young ages (they were, on average, 24

years at the time of marriage in 2009) and that these brides frequently begin childbearing shortly after

migration (Jeong et al. 2009; Korea 2011). Since Korean society has experienced an ongoing period of

low fertility and a resulting decrease in its labor force population, the increased influx of international

migrant women, and their subsequent offspring, will inevitably affect the population structure of Korea in

new and dynamic ways (Yang 2010). However recent statistics and literature consistently demonstrates

that female marriage migrants in Korea are likely to suffer from various health-related problems, such as

poor access to health care services due to severe poverty (Korea Ministry of Health, 2008), acculturative

stress (Kim et al. 2010) and low life satisfaction (Park, Park and Kim 2007). Given that maternal health is

highly associated with fetal health and later child health outcomes, the problems of health and stress

among marriage migrant women become a crucial issue to consider (Lee, Lee and Kim 2012b).

Health of marriage migrant women and husband’s SES

As immigrants, marriage migrants face many barriers to healthcare in Korea which native-born

women would not experience, including a poor understanding of the healthcare systems and a lack of

social support and thus, the social determinants affecting the health of the female marriage migrant group

as a whole may be more complex than for the native population (Lee, Lee and Kim 2012b). Unlike

migrants with only a temporary legal status, marriage migrants, voluntarily or not, gradually integrate into

both the larger Korean society and its household culture while forming their new family units. Naturally

among health predictors for migrant wives, those specifically related to their own background

characteristics, and others related to the characteristics of their husbands, or the families they join in

Korea might be important. In this paper, we explore the role that the husband’s characteristics play in

regard to their wives’ health outcomes. In fact, many empirical and theoretical studies in Western

countries have explored the influence of partner’s socioeconomic status (SES) on own health and health

behaviors. Despite a few differences in the results based on research contexts, these studies document

consistent findings that a person’s socioeconomic characteristics are significantly and independently

associated with the spouse’s health outcomes (Martikainen 1995; Monden et al. 2003; Moser, Pugh and

Goldblatt 1988; Van Berkel and De Graaf 1995). For instance, Moser and colleagues (1988) investigated

inequality in the mortality of women in England using Census data and reported that those women whose

husbands have non-manual jobs show a decreased mortality in comparison to those marrying husbands in

manual jobs. Despite past studies contributions to the subject of health and partner relationships, there is a

limitation in postulating similar such relationships between couples in contemporary contexts. This is

because much of the research examining the influence of spouses and health was conducted during the

1980s and 1990s, when female labor force participation was much less common, and so the husbands’

SES provided a more reliable measure of the wives’ SES and health than that of themselves (Martikainen

1995). Also, in Korea, as with other industrialized countries, gender equality and women’s social

participation has increased. For instance; in 2011 the proportion of the dual-earner couples reached about

44% of all households, and this figure was almost 60% for households headed by individuals 15 to 40

years old (Statistics Korea, 2011). Therefore in present day Korean society, the husbands’ SES may no

longer be an accurate indication of the wives’ SES and wives’ health outcomes in the case of native-born

couples. But, in the case of multicultural families with foreign brides, relationships are more likely to

follow a patriarchal family structure in which the foreign wives’ are highly dependent on their husbands,

both economically and psychologically. Therefore, even if the framework from earlier studies may no

longer explain the reality of Korean-Korean partner relationships, it may still have some relevance in the

case of multicultural families with foreign brides.

The high dependence of foreign wives on their native-born husbands is facilitated in part by each

marital partner’s motivation to enter into an international marriage. Regarding the purpose of marriage,

prior quantitative and qualitative studies show that whether women migrated to Korea for the purpose of

marriage or seeking job opportunities, foreign women are largely motivated to marry Korean males out of

economic necessity (Kim et al. 2006; Lee, Seol and Cho 2006). As mentioned, foreign women who were

involved in the international marriage migration are likely to come from low income countries and these

women are motivated by economic reasons, for instance, to escape poverty in their home countries,

improve their quality of life, and obtain financial support from their husbands to send to family members

in their country of origin (Lee, Lee and Kim 2012b; Lu 2005). For women who immigrate to Korea as

labor migrants – a large proportion of which are ethnic Korean Chinese - marriage is regarded as a means

to maintain their residency and, therefore, continue their employment in Korea (Seol et al.

2005). Results from two different large sample surveys show evidence of this phenomenon. For example,

findings from a survey in 2007 revealed that 70% of female migrant partners entered Korea for the

purpose of marriage, and among all female Vietnamese and Filipino immigrants who entered Korea that

same year, 90% immigrated in order to marry Korean men (Jung 2007). Another survey conducted by

Ministry of Health and Welfare (2005) reports that when asked why they married their Korean husbands,

almost half of foreign brides responded they did so for “economic reasons” (41%), in contrast 35% of

them responded they married because “they love their husbands” (Seol et al. 2005). Some migrant wives

try to seek a new job to contribute to the household economy and/or to send remittance to their remaining

family in their home country. These women are generally marginalized in the labor market or occupy

lower paid jobs irrespective of their particular nationality and ethnicity, because they lack the language

and work skills demanded in higher paid industries (Seol, Lee and Cho 2006a). Therefore, not

surprisingly, marriage migrants tend to depend heavily or even completely on their husbands’ financial

support (Lee, Lee and Kim 2012a). Prior studies have pointed out that this imbalance in economic power

and social status within the married-couple is the critical reason for the difference in household decision-

making power between husbands and wives and gender inequality, resulting in the higher dependence of

women on their husbands, as well as increased domestic abuse (Kalmuss and Straus 1982; Lee 2008; Lim

1997; Warner, Lee and Lee 1986).

Besides the individual economic motivations of migrant brides, the context of international marriage

in Korea helps explain the strong dependence of migrant women on their husbands and the inequity

within their relationships. With the rapid urbanization of Korean society since the 1950s, Korean women

have attained a higher level of education and increased their participation in the labor market. In order to

pursue their educational and occupational goals, women marry at later ages, or sometimes they forgo

marriage altogether (Kim 2008a). This demographic shift in marital formation is combined with a

traditional preference for male offspring and a subsequent fertility rate below replacement levels,

reducing the number of marriageable women in the country (Kim 2004). The resulting deficit of domestic

female partners is a phenomenon referred to as “marriage squeeze.” Under these circumstances, Korean

males, particularly those of lower socioeconomic status such as unmarried males living in rural farming

communities, or low-income divorced males living in urban areas, find it difficult to attract women of

marriageable age in the domestic marriage market (Kim 2008c; Seol, Lee and Cho 2006b). Korean males

are then forced to find prospective wives in other countries, especially in low income countries in Asia

because these countries have cultures of marriage similar to South Korea, and Korean males can take

advantage of Korea’s higher economic position to attract spouses. Although a portion of international

marriages are mediated through personal networks, or through the Unification Church, a large share of

marriages are arranged by profit–oriented agencies or commercialized brokers, which have played an

important role in increasing the cross-border marriage market in Asia (Kim 2008c; Wang 2007). These

international marriage agencies arrange meetings between local women in less developed countries and

marginalized men in Korea. This process takes only a few weeks and men pay a sizable fee to meet their

potential wives (Park, Park and Kim 2007), a phenomenon which is defined by previous scholars as

“mail-order brides” or the “commodification of cross-border marriage” (Wang and Chang 2002). Because

international marriages begin as economic arrangements, many Korean husbands think of themselves as

“owners” and think of their foreign wives as “products” and this relationship continues throughout the

marriage (Kim 2008b). Moreover, with paying the large amount of fee, Korean husbands and their parents

expect that foreign-born wives will “serve” their husbands and their parents-in-law and dedicate

themselves to their husbands’ lineage by bearing a child (Lim 1997).

In addition to economic reasons, psychological dimensions also may contribute to the strong

husband dependence observed among foreign wives. Generally migrants (including those who come to

Korea) face decreased social support due to the separation from family members and friends left in their

countries of origin. Although local governments have various programs to offer social support to female

migrant partners, some of these women find it difficult to recreate a useful support system, mostly

because many of them do not work outside the home and they have no prior social connections in Korea

(Jung and Kang 2008), or others live in rural areas where institutions for social activities are relatively

rare (Kim and Shin 2007). Under these circumstances, husbands are an important source of direct social

support and also provide social networks by helping foreign wives to establish other types of social

connections (Jeong et al. 2009).

Another factor influencing marriage migrant women’s subordinate position in households is the

procedure for obtaining residency status in South Korea. In order to gain citizenship, immigrants must

maintain residence in the country for at least two years and women must obtain consent from their

husbands. Sometimes husbands and their families use this condition for the requesting of citizenship to

force foreign brides to tolerate unequal relationships (Kim 2010). Although the divorce rate between

Korean males and foreign women is much higher than for native couples (Statistic Korea, 2011), previous

studies indicate that marriage migrant women have few alternatives but to remain in their current

marriages because divorce is viewed in negative terms by friends and family in their original countries

and once divorced, the new divorcee would be unable to support herself financially (Lee, Lee and Kim

2012b). This reliance on husbands to provide support during the citizenship acquisition process, and a

lack of alternatives to staying in the marriage can reinforce male dominance in international marriage

households. In response to the important role of the husband’s characteristics in understanding marriage

migrant women’s various life experiences, studies of foreign brides in Korea generally consider the

husband’s support, SES and their relationship with their foreign brides as points to explaining migrant

women’s health outcomes (Kim et al. 2006; Lee, Lee and Kim 2012b). In particular, the findings of

several qualitative studies of marriage migrant women all agree that the health outcomes for the migrant

women are strongly related to their husband’s economic circumstances and the quality of their

relationship. But despite the attention given to the husband’s characteristics, the question of to what

extent the husband’s SES is related to their foreign wives’ health outcomes is still ambiguous. This is due

mainly to an earlier study pattern: Although many studies have taken husband characteristics into account

in the multivariate analysis, research has generally viewed the health problems of foreign wives only from

an individual perspective or migrant women’s own background, dealing with husband characteristics to

be simple confounders without appropriately controlling for them. This pattern is also found in studies

that examine the various health indicators of migrant women which are closely related to a woman’s

husband; such as contraception (Kim, Kim and Kwon 2008), spousal support (Kim 2008a), acculturative

stress, and family conflict (Park, Park and Kim 2007). Furthermore, most of the studies that have

explored the correlation between husbands’ SES and foreign wives’ health outcomes have been limited by

small sample sizes, or have focused only on certain racial/ethnic groups, with findings not generalizable

to the larger population. Thus, in this study we investigate how the husband’s two SES indicator -

education and employment status - affects their migrant partner’s health and life satisfaction. We make

use of a large-scale dataset that contains detailed demographic, socioeconomic and migration information

about partners in multicultural families. To provide a broad understanding of marriage migrant health

outcomes, we focus on female migrant partners from four sending countries, which represented 85.7% of

all foreign wives in South Korea in 2010.

Hypotheses

Based on the above arguments regarding the health outcomes of marriage migrant women and

husband’s SES, the hypotheses of this study are as follows:

1. A review of the relationship between spouse’s SES and health status suggests Korean husband’s

SES may affect the health outcomes of their migrant wives (Kim et al. 2006; Monden et al. 2007). Thus

we first expect that marriage migrants who married Korean husbands with a higher education and level of

employment are more likely to report good health and life satisfaction (hypothesis 1). We expect that

migrant women who married men of higher SES, measured by their education and employment status,

will report good health and life satisfaction.

2. In addition to the influence of socioeconomic characteristics of the husband, migrant women’s

high spousal dependency, and their poor socioeconomic position in Korean society leads us to assume

that the influence of husband’s SES on the migrant partner’s health and life satisfaction maybe similar to

or stronger than foreign bride’s own SES indicators (hypothesis 2). We expect that the influence of

husband’s SES on female migrant’s health and life satisfaction will be as strong as or stronger than the

foreign bride’s own SES.

3. Since the influences of husband’s socioeconomic characteristics on the foreign wife’s health and

life satisfaction is essentially cumulative over time after they marry, we can assume that the magnitude of

the effect varies by the duration of marriage. Further, when migrating to a different social environment

female migrant women tend to confront various challenges such as the stress of adapting to the new

society, psychological isolation, social exclusion and language barriers in Korea (Kim 2010; Kim and

Shin 2007; Lee, Lee and Kim 2012b). This series of events would erode their physical and mental health

over time even though they have a good health status upon arrival to the country given their young age

and positive selection among other potential immigrants. We assume that this cumulative negative effect

over time may vary in relation to who migrant partners live with. Accordingly, we expect an interactive

effect between duration of marriage and husband’s SES, when a foreign wife lives with Korean husband

with a higher SES they are likely to show better health outcomes than those who live with low SES

husbands (hypothesis 3).

Data and Analysis Sample

Data are drawn from the 2009 National Survey on Multicultural Families carried out by the

Ministry for Health and Welfare, and Family Affairs. The survey investigated various dimensions of life

among foreign brides and grooms including family relations, employment, children, social activities,

health status and need for welfare. The sample included about 131,000 multicultural families who reside

in Korea, among about 167,000 marriage migrant or marriage migrant who naturalized as a Korean

citizen listed in the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, South Korea. Overall response rate

for the survey was 56%. The survey was conducted during 20th July to 20th September 2009. We select

female marriage migrants age 14 and over who came from China, Vietnam, The Philippines and Japan or

are ethnic Korean Chinese (n=63,048). The respondents who are divorced or widowed (n=3,628) and

those with missing information are not included in the analysis. Excluding divorced or widowed

respondents may arise selection bias as they might have worse relationship with their spouse than those

who within marriage, but the proportion of this group is very small (less than one percent) and we think it

would not affect our results. The number of excluded observations due to missing information across

covariates of interest is about 18% and in preliminary analyses we found no significant changes in results

due to missing data. Consequently, our finial sample includes 49,087 marriage migrant women.

Measures

Two outcomes are chosen to investigate the health of female marriage migrants: self-rated health

(SRH) and self-reported life satisfaction. Several research has documented SRH is relevant to physical

health outcomes such as mortality and morbidity (Gogers, Hummer and Nam 2000; Hoeymans et al. 1997)

and has been used in prior studies to represent health status of immigrants (Cho et al. 2004; Newbold

2005). Furthermore, given that migrant women have lower access to the health care system and lack

official health records, it is possible that self-reported health may provide a more accurate and reliable

health measure. The other dependent variable, life satisfaction, has been previously found to serve as not

only physical and mental health indicator (Koivumaa-Honkanen et al. 2000; Tran and Nguyen 1994), also

other aspects of individual health that pertain to general well-being, one’s sense of security and relative

assessment of material and psychological environments (Strine et al. 2008). Thus, these two measures of

health would allow us to identify female migrants’ physical health and quality of life simultaneously. In

the survey, respondents were asked to rate their general health as very good, quite good, neutral, bad and

very bad and we classified these in two categories: very good and quite good for ‘good health’ and else.

Similarly, the survey asked the level of life satisfaction as a whole with a five-point scale; Very much

satisfied, satisfied, neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, dissatisfied and very much dissatisfied. Like SRH,

respondents are defined ‘good life satisfaction’ if they reported very much satisfied and satisfied life

satisfaction.

Independent variables are largely divided into three dimensions: female migrant characteristics,

husband characteristics and couple’s characteristics. For each partner, we included age measured in years,

employment status and level of education. Employment status is categorized into employed and

unemployed. Education is classified into three categories: less than 9 years of schooling (less than middle

school), 10 to12 years (some high school to high school graduate), and 13 years or more (at least some

college). In addition to these variables, female migrant women characteristics include nationality or

ethnicity (Ethnic Korean Chinese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipina and Japanese) and having social

networks. Whether respondents have social networks is assessed using the question in the survey: ‘Who

do you spend your time with in the following situation?’ to which respondents gave answers for four

different situations: ‘Having an individual or family trouble’, ‘Leisure, recreation, hobby’, ‘Celebrations

or ceremonies (Wedding, funeral).’ We define migrant women have access to a social network if they

answer they have Korean friends to rely on for at least one of the suggested situations and migrant women

are defined as not having social network if she does not have Koreans for all of four situations. Couple’s

characteristics include educational and employment differences between spouses, monthly household

income, duration of the marriage, number of children and how the couple met. The survey measures

average household income before tax and this is coded in five groups; less than 1.0 Korean million won

(KMW, about 1,000 USD), 1.1 to 2.0 KMW, 2.1 to 3.0 KMW, more than 3.1 KMW and ‘don’t know’. We

did not exclude respondents who answer ‘don’t know’ for household income as we found marriage

migrant women who select this category were statistically different from others regarding health

outcomes in the preliminary analysis. Previous literature indicates that many of foreign females involved

in international marriages have limited or false information on their future South Korean husbands,

mostly because international marriage agencies distort or even withhold information on husband’s

characteristics such as his age and income to facilitate the negotiation of the marriage match (Seol et al.

2005). During marriage, sometimes native-husbands are reluctant to share information about household

property even if foreign brides contribute for it because of concern that the woman will ask for a divorce

upon finding out she was given wrong information regarding her husband’s economic status (Kim et al.

2006). Whether before or during marriage, the fact that a foreign wife is not aware of information that is

supposed to be shared in advance to the marriage or the denial of women’s requests for equal partnership

shows the imbalanced partner relationship inherent to these types of marriages, which is the cornerstone

to our argument regarding the disadvantageous position of foreign wives in South Korea. The duration of

marriage was measured in years. Number of children was classified in three groups: none, one, and two or

more children. Since this study posits the marriage migrant women’s subordinate position and

dependence on husband in a household increase the influence of husband’s SES on their health, SES

differences between couple may explain the effect of husband’s SES well. Thus, in addition to educational

attainment and employment status of each partner, we included the differences in education and

employment status between partners. For education, three categories were used; same education level,

wife has lower education than husband and wife has higher education. Difference in employment status

was also measured in three categories: same employment status, only husband working and only wife

working.

Methods

We first present descriptive statistics on the sample and the main covariates of interest by our two

health outcomes. Next, we use four different logistic regression models to address our hypotheses for the

two health outcomes, SRH and life satisfaction. . In the baseline model (model 1), only female migrant’s

characteristics were included, model 2 adds husband’s characteristics. And model 3 adds couple’s

characteristics such as income, marriage duration, number of children, and the way in which the couple

met. In model 4, instead of controlling for each spouse level of education and employment status, we

controlled for the differences in education and employment status between spouses. In addition to these

models and to test hypothesis 3, we estimate additional models with interaction terms between both

husband’s education and the educational difference between spouses, and duration of marriage. Results

from these models are presented in table 4. Employment status of partners was not considered because,

unlike educational attainment, one’s employment could be different over time and the data we used here

do not include employment history after marriage.

Results

Table 1 shows percentage distributions of the health outcomes and other covariates. Among the all

national/ethnic groups, ethnic Korean Chinese accounted for the highest proportion of respondents in the

sample (39.4%), followed by Vietnamese (28.3%) and Chinese (15%). The proportion of Filipina and

Japanese women is relatively small, making up about 10 percent and seven percent of women respectively.

Overall, about half of foreign brides (52.8%) reported ‘good health’ and almost 58% reported ‘good life

satisfaction.’ About 44% of migrant women have a high school diploma and 20.5% of them have college

degree or higher education. The distribution of women’s education is similar to the distribution of

husbands’ education, in that half of husbands have a high school diploma and 21.8% of husbands have

higher than college degree. In contrast to education, there are considerable differences between wives’

and husbands’ employment status and age. Regarding employment status, only about six percent of

husbands were unemployed at the time of survey, while unemployment among female migrant wives is

about ten times as much (59.7%). In addition, husbands are almost 10 years older than their migrant wives,

the mean age of husbands is 43.3 years and for women the mean age is 33.3 years. Turning to couple’s

characteristics, nearly half of spouses have the same degree of education and in about 30 percent of

couples, migrant women have lower education than their Korean husband. The proportion of couple with

equal employment status is 35.1% and in 5.7% of couples the wife is the only one employed. These

descriptive information suggesting differences in the employment status and the educational difference

supporting the basic concept of our hypotheses which is marriage migrant women’s subordinate position

in household. The monthly household income of sample is low, 18.2% responded that their household

income is less than 1.0 KMW, and for 40.3% their monthly household income is less than 2.0 KMW.

Only 8.9% of couples report more than 3.0 KMW monthly household income. The average length of

marriage is 5.5 years, and multicultural families who have children comprise about 65% of the total

sample. The highest proportion of migrant women responded that they met their husband through

commercialized agencies or brokers (27.4%) and similar proportions of women reported they did so

through family member or relative (25.7%) or in other ways (26.8). Columns 2 and 3 in Table 1 show the

distribution of sample by the two health outcomes. In here, we can observe that female migrant partners

whose husbands have college or higher education, are currently employed and younger, represent a higher

percentage of those who report ‘good health’ and ‘good life satisfaction.’

Table 2 and 3 are set up to examine our first and second hypotheses. The former table presents the

results of the logistic regression models for SRH. Model 1 which is base model only includes migrant

women’s characteristics and shows that migrant women with college education or higher have 26%

increased odds of reporting better self-reported health than women with less than high school education.

The age of migrant women has a negative effect on their health in that younger foreign brides are more

likely to report better SRH (OR:0.96). Migrant women who have a social network exhibit much higher

odds of having better SRH than migrant women who do not have a social network (OR:1.61). Model 2

adds husband’s characteristics and we found a positive and significant effect of husband’s education and

employment status. For example, marriage migrant women whose husbands have a high school diploma

and college education or higher have 16% and 30% higher odds of reporting better SRH compared to

women marrying Korean husband with less than a high school diploma respectively. Notably, the effects

shown in the odds ratios for husband’s educational characteristics are higher than those of women’s own

education, suggesting that the SRH disparity among foreign brides is more influenced by their husband’s

education than by their own education. This pattern is also found in husband’s employment status,

migrant women whose husband is currently working have 26% increased odds of having better SRH than

their counterparts, but employment status shows weak association with their SRH (OR:1.06). In model 3

which adds controls for couple’s characteristics we see that the odds ratios for both spouses educational

level are reduced, and the effect of employment status is no longer significant. Yet, despite the decreased

influence of husbands’ SES on women’s SRH, the effect of husband’s education remains significant and is

still larger than the effect of migrant women’s own education. Among couple’s characteristics, we observe

substantial SRH differences by household income, suggesting that the advantage of husband’s higher

education observed in model 2 is due in part to household wealth. The duration of marriage has a

significant negative effect on migrant women’s SRH (OR:0.97), every one-year increase in marriage

duration is associated to a three percent decrease in the odds of reporting better SRH. There is no

significant association between SRH and the number of children or the way the couple met. Odds ratios in

model 4 reveal that marriage migrant women who have a higher educational attainment than their Korean

husbands exhibit 9% lower odds of reporting better SRH compared to women with the same degree of

education with their husbands. But there is no significant difference by the couple’s employment status

gap. The results from table 2 support out hypotheses that the higher husband’s SES significantly increase

the chance of reporting better SRH and this effect is stronger than that of women’s SES.

With regard to life satisfaction, the results show a more dynamic pattern. In model 1 in Table 3,

only female migrant women with a college education or higher have increased odds of reporting ‘better

life satisfaction’ compared to the reference group, but the advantage of migrant women with college

education disappears after adjusting for husband’s characteristics in model 2. Instead, foreign brides with

high school education or higher have decreased odds of reporting good life satisfaction. Reduced odds

ratios are also found in model 3 that additionally stratified couple’s characteristics, suggesting the

covariates included in husband’s and couple’s characteristics have a protective effect for marriage migrant

wives in terms of their life satisfaction. Despite of decreased odds of showing good life satisfaction in

model 2, we found,again, an education gradient in the impact of husband’s education for reporting good

life satisfaction. For instance, marriage migrant women with college or higher education have 7%

decreased odds of reporting good life satisfaction, however, those who marry Korean men with college

education or higher have 58% increased odds of reporting good life satisfaction. We also observe a

substantial difference in the effect of employment status between spouses, employed women exhibit only

8% lower odds of showing satisfaction with their life than unemployed migrant women, but women

whose husband are currently employed have 84% increased odds of reporting good life satisfaction than

women with unemployed husbands (model 2). Model 3 shows a stronger negative effect of migrant

women’s education on their life satisfaction compared to model 2. Although the increased odds of

reporting higher life satisfaction associated to husband’s education diminished after controlling for

couple’s characteristics, husband’s education continues to be significantly associated to increased odds of

reporting life satisfaction for their foreign wives. Employment status of spouses follow opposite

directions, employed migrant women have lower odds of having life satisfaction than the reference group

(OR: 0.86), but the odds of reporting good life satisfaction is higher for women who have employed

husbands (OR: 1.45). Unlike results in model 3 of SRH, most of the couple’s characteristics are

significantly associated with foreign brides’ life satisfaction. Similar to SRH, higher monthly household

income is related to increased odds of reporting higher life satisfaction, and duration of marriage is

negatively associated with women’s life satisfaction. Migrant women who met their husband through

their friends, family members and religious groups have increased odds of showing better life satisfaction

than foreign brides who met their husband through commercialized agencies. In model 4 we observe

significant relations between foreign wife’s life satisfaction and the differences in education and

employment characteristics between spouses. Migrant partners tend to show lower life satisfaction when

their educational attainment is higher than that of their husbands compared to women who have the same

level of education than their husbands. Similarly, marriage migrant women show lower odds of reporting

better life satisfaction when they are currently working, and increased odds of reporting higher life

satisfaction when their husbands are employed. These results from logistic models point to significant

difference in migrant women’s life satisfaction by their husband’s SES substantiate the hypothesis 1 but it

is not clear that husband’s SES have a ‘stronger’ effect than that of women’s SES because odds ratios for

education categories and employments status show opposite direction.

Results from the models with interaction effects for the two health outcomes are presented in Tables

4 and 5, Table 4 shows the interaction effect between husband’s education and marriage duration, while

table 5 suggests the interaction effect between education differences between spouses and marriage

duration. With regard to the interaction effect of husband’s education and duration of marriage, no

significant interactions were found for both outcomes. However, we find a significant interaction effect of

interaction between duration of marriage and the difference in education among spouses. In specific,

marriage migrant women who have lower educational attainment than their husbands have a lower

likelihood of reporting better SRH and life satisfaction as they spend more time in the marriage than

women who have the same degree of education than their Korean husbands.

Discussion

The current study examined the effect of Korean husband’s SES on SRH and life satisfaction

among about 43,000 female international marriage migrants from four countries in East Asia who reside

in South Korea. Due mainly to the commercialized international marriage process in East Asia and

particular circumstances in South Korea which increase foreign brides’ dependence on husbands and

increase inequality in gender roles within the household, we hypothesized a significant a strong influence

of husband’s SES on their foreign wives’ health and life satisfaction. The results of this study, on the

whole, show significant disparities of SRH and life satisfaction among female migrant partners by

husband’s educational attainment and employment status, and the effect of husband’s SES indicators

remains even when we adjust for women’s own SES. In fact, the effect of husband’s SES is greater than

the effect of women’s characteristics Health disparities by Korean husband’s educational attainment were

found even after adjustment for variety of covariates of interest. Interestingly, the effect of the education

and employment status of spouses follow opposite direction, marriage migrant women’s education and

employment status are associated with lower odds of reporting higher life satisfaction, while the

education and employment status of their husbands have a positive effect on women’s life satisfaction.

The results from the logistic regression models, on the one hand, are largely similar to findings of

previous studies that explored the relationship between spouse SES indicators and one’s health behaviors

and health status (Kalmuss and Straus 1982; Moser, Pugh and Goldblatt 1988; Van Berkel and De Graaf

1995). Other studies also found that husband’s or spouse’s socioeconomic characteristics such as

occupational status and educational attainment are significantly associated with one’s health, emphasizing

the important role of spouse’s SES in explaining one’s health and life satisfaction. On the other hand, in

spite of those similarities, the present analysis shows differing results than those of earlier research in

several ways: first, despite of close relationships between spouse’s SES and one’s health, previous studies

have found that one’s SES indicators are better predictors of health status than spouses’ economic

characteristics (Martikainen 1995; Monden et al. 2007; Moser, Pugh and Goldblatt 1988). That is, studies

generally explain the socioeconomic characteristics of spouses as subsidiary information that may also

affect one’s health beyond one’s own characteristics. In this study, however, as we expected, Korean

husband’s SES -education and employment status- play a more important role in explaining migrant

women’s self-rated health. Another difference from previous findings is that the strong effect of husband’s

SES on their migrant wife in the analysis is consistent even after controlling for many other covariates

including household income. This result shows important implications for our understanding of the

relationship between Korean husbands and international marriage migrant women. The earlier studies

mostly explain the influence of spouse’s SES on one’s health from material perspectives indicating that

economic support in a household from one’s spouse could affect SES of members of household and then

this would influence one’s health outcomes. But the results of this study show there are more than

economic reasons in the relationship between husband’s SES and foreign bride’s health, which could be

linked to healthy lifestyle, information, access to asocial network and the relationship between partners.

With regard to life satisfaction in model 3, higher education and employment status of husband are

associated to higher odds of reporting better life satisfaction. However, foreign wives’ own education and

employment have a negative effect on their odds of reporting life satisfaction (model 3) which is different

from what we expected. This result is also not in line with the general idea that education has positive

effect on individual’s material conditions and well-being as higher education levels are related to better

wealth and material conditions. Although there is evidence that the direction of the correlation between

education and life satisfaction is mixed, a negative relationship between these two variables usually

emerges in high income people, rather than among people in low income, to which marriage migrant

women mostly belong to (Palmore and Luikart 1972). This reversed relationship between migrant

women’s SES and life satisfaction may be understood when we think about foreign brides’ economic

motivations for cross-border marriage and their relatively poor life conditions in South Korea. As

discussed earlier, marriage migrant women try to send remittances to their family back in their home

countries and expect to improve their life conditions in Korea in terms of material wealth. However, this

expectation of improved life conditions is often not achieved because, ironically, the Korean men who

marry foreign brides are likely to come from a more disadvantaged socioeconomic background compared

to other Korean men, which is precisely what made it difficult for them to find spouses in the domestic

marriage market. Wang (2007) who investigated international marriage between Taiwanese man and

Vietnamese women in Taiwan, which is a case similar to that of South Korea, clearly documented this

contradiction, “no sooner had they arrived in Taiwan than they found out that their husbands’ social status

was not what they had imagined” (Wang 2007). In fact, qualitative research on marriage migrant’s life in

South Korea indicates that foreign brides experience frustration and conflict with their Korean husbands

when they fail to send remittances to their family in the country of origin. In contrast to self-rated health,

which is mainly determined by physical health status, the concept of life satisfaction is affected by how

people rate their life in terms of relative standards compared to what they would expect their life to be

given their circumstances and social status (Duncan 1975). Thus migrant women with higher levels of

education are more likely to feel disappointment of their current circumstances when they could have had

a better economic status and more equality in a relationship in their country of origin.

The result of a negative effect of the age independent duration of marriage in model 3 and 4 is

consistent with earlier studies (Park, Park and Kim 2007). Also these changes in health outcomes during

marriage are similar to the ‘healthy migrant effect’ theory which explains that immigrant’s health

advantages at the time of arrival to the U.S. worsened over time as they acculturate to the U.S. culture

(Lopez-Gonzalez, Aravena and Hummer 2005). In the context of U.S., studies highlight that the rate of

health deterioration as immigrants spend a longer time in the country could vary with their socioeconomic

characteristics, such as education (Cho and Hummer 2001). In the case of marriage migrant women in

Korea, we found that the negative effect of time spent in Korea on health varies depending on the

educational gaps between spouses, rather than their own educational levels. Given the very low

proportion of employed migrant women and their low economic power in a household, migrant wives

with lower education than their husbands tend to be more subordinate to husbands than do other women

who have an equal or higher education than their husbands.

After migration, immigrants generally start to integrate into the mainstream culture of the host

country and in this process, they choose how to they acculturate based on to what extent to they want to

maintain their origin culture and interact within the host society (Berry 1997). Marriage migrant women

in Korea, however, lose the freedom to choose how they integrate into the mainstream within a male-

dominated household and isolation which constrains their access to local culture and their opportunities to

be in contact with the larger society, so they have limitations in their destinies of acculturation. In this

process, immigrants are likely to be forced to place little value on their own culture while accepting the

culture of the husband. We think two aspects of this process create outcomes of worse life satisfaction for

marriage migrants. First, when a foreign wife is limited in her freedom to pursue the social or cultural

behaviors of her home country and is forced to adopt those of her husband’s culture, the foreign wife is

more likely to experience acculturative stress (Dona and Berry 1994). For instance, qualitative research

on the health risks for international marriage migrant women in Korea shows that migrant women married

to Korean husbands suffer stress due to having to adopt a new diet that may be radically different in

comparison to the cuisine of their country of origin, yet they are forced to follow the Korean dietary

culture as their husbands and parent-in-laws prefer (Lee, Lee and Kim 2012b).

Since the second half of the twentieth century studies on international migration have paid particular

attention to the emergence of female migration, suggesting the various patterns of women participating in

international migration and the trigger factors behind these new migration trends (Curran et al. 2006).

International marriage migration is one of the main features of female migration in East and South East

Asia, however, little research has been done on the role of social determinants in relation to the wellbeing

of international marriage migrants in the country of destination. Among other things, the health outcomes

of these migrants have not received appropriate attention in the research scholarship (Wang and Chang

2002). Our findings demonstrate the importance of the husband’s SES in relation to the health and life

satisfaction of female marriage migrants. Therefore future health interventions and policies aimed at

helping international marriage migrants should take into account the husband’s characteristics in their

analysis.

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Tables

Table 1. Percentage Distributions of Health Outcomes, Demographic and SES Characteristics for

Marriage Migrant Women (n=43,699)

Variables All Good SRH Good Life

Satisfaction

Very good and quite good SRH 52.8 - -

Very much satisfied and satisfied life

satisfaction 57.9

- -

Own Characteristics

Education

Less than middle school graduate 34.8 33.6** 36.6

High school graduate 44.5 44.4 43.9

College or more 20.5 21.9 19.4

Employment status

Employed 40.8 39.5** 38.4

Unemployed 59.1 60.4 61.5

Age (Mean, year) 33.3 32.3 32.4

Social network

Having a network 62.0 66.9** 67.9

Country of origin

Korean ethnic Chinese 39.4 39.6** 40.1

Chinese 15.0 16.1 15.6

Vietnamese 28.3 27.9 30.9

Filipino 9.6 10.3 8.8

Japanese 7.4 5.9 4.3

Husband Characteristics

Education

Less than middle school graduate 24.4 21.1** 22.1

High school graduate 53.7 54.8 53.9

College or more 21.8 24.0 23.8

Employment Status

Employed 94.3 95.2** 96.0

Unemployed 5.7 4.7 3.9

Age(Mean, year) 43.3 42.5 42.9

Couple’s characteristics

Educational Difference

Same 50.2 50.5** 50.0

Lower for wife 29.7 30.7 32.6

Higher for wife 20.0 18.6 17.2

Employment status Difference

Same 35.1 34.8** 34.5

Only husband working 59.7 60.4 61.5

Only wife working 5.7 4.7 3.9

Household income (KMW)

Less than 1.0 18.2 14.7** 14.2

1.1-2.0 40.3 39.8 38.9

2.1-3.0 20.3 22.8 23.5

More than 3.0 8.9 11.3 11.5

Don’t know 12.1 11.2 11.6

Duration of marriage

(mean, in years) 5.2 4.7 4.7

Children

None 35.1** 35.3 37.8

1 39.2 40.3 39.3

2 or more 25.6 24.2 22.8

How couple met

Through an agency 27.4** 27.5 28.2

Through family or a relative 25.7 25.7 27.1

Through a friend or co-worker 19.9 20.2 20.4

Others (religious group, by self and etc.) 26.8 26.4 24.1

Table 2. Odds Rations for the Effects of Marriage Migrant Women, Husbands and Couple

Characteristics on Self-Reported Health

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4

Own Characteristics

Education [less than 9 years]

High school graduate 1.03 0.99 0.98 -

College or more 1.26** 1.16** 1.09** -

Employment status [unemployed]

Employed 1.02 1.06** 1.03 -

Age(year) 0.96** 0.96** 0.97** 0.97**

Social Network

Having a network 1.61** 1.61** 1.57** 1.58**

Country of origin[Korean Chinese]

Chinese 1.02 0.99 0.94 0.95

Vietnamese 0.62** 0.67** 0.73** 0.72**

Filipino 0.92* 0.97 1.17** 1.25**

Japanese 0.62** 0.59** 0.65** 0.69**

* P<.05 **P<.01

Husband Characteristics

Education [less than 9 years]

High school graduate - 1.16** 1.11** -

College or more - 1.30** 1.15** -

Employment status [unemployed]

Employed - 1.26** 1.08 -

Age(year) 0.99** 0.99** 1.00

Couple’s characteristics

Educational difference (Equal)

Lower education for wife - - - 0.98

Higher education for wife - - - 0.91**

Employment status difference ( Equal )

Only husband working - - - 0.97

Only wife working - - - 0.92

Household income( Less than 1.0 KMW)

1.1-2.0 - - 1.32** 1.33**

2.1-3.0 - - 1.72** 1.75**

More than 3.0 - - 2.35** 2.45**

Don’t know - - 1.09* 1.10*

Duration of marriage[in years] 0.97** 0.97**

Children[None]

1 - - 0.98 0.99

2 + - - 0.98 0.98

How couple met (Through an agency)

Through family members - - 0.96 0.97

Through friends or co-workers - - 1.02 1.03

Others (religious group, by self and etc.) - - 1.01 1.04

AIC 58643 56886 54216 54241

Table 3. Odds Rations for the Effects of Marriage Migrant Women, Husbands and Couple

Characteristics on Life Satisfaction

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4

Own Characteristics

Education [less than 9 years]

High school graduate 0.92 0.88** 0.86** -

College or more 1.05** 0.93* 0.85** -

Employment status [unemployed]

Employed 0.85** 0.92** 0.86** -

Age(year) 0.98** 0.98** 0.98** 0.98**

Social Network

Having a network 1.95** 1.95** 1.87** 1.87**

Country of origin[Korean Chinese]

Chinese 1.00 0.98 0.84 0.95

Vietnamese 0.99 1.04 1.24** 1.24**

Filipino 0.76** 0.81** 1.06** 1.10*

Japanese 0.34** 0.32** 0.38** 0.40**

Husband Characteristics

Education [less than 9 years]

High school graduate - 1.15** 1.10** -

College or more - 1.58** 1.32** -

Employment status [unemployed]

* P<.05 **P<.01

Table4. Odds Ratios of the Interactive Effect between Husbands’ Education and Marriage

Duration for SRH and Life Satisfaction

SRH Life Satisfaction

Main Effect

Husband’s Education [less than 9 years]

High school graduate 1.10* 1.14**

College or more 1.12* 1.23**

Duration of Marriage 0.96** 0.97**

Interactive Effect

High school graduate(husband) * Duration

of marriage 1.00 0.86

College or more(husband) * Duration of m

arriage 1.00 0.85

AIC 54220 51387 * P<.05 **P<.01 a Models control for migrant women characteristics, husbands characteristics and couple characteristics, full results

from these models available upon request.

Table 5. Odds Ratios of the Interactive Effect between Spouses Education Differences and

Marriage Duration for SRH and Life Satisfaction

SRH Life Satisfaction

Main Effect Educational difference (Equal)

Lower education for wife 0.93* 1.28**

Higher education for wife 1.07 0.85**

Duration of Marriage 0.97** 0.97**

Employed - 1.84** 1.45** -

Age(year) 1.00 1.00* 1.00*

Couple’s characteristics

Educational difference (Equal)

Lower education for wife - - - 1.13**

Higher education for wife - - - 0.86**

Employment status difference ( Equal )

Only husband working - - - 1.15**

Only wife working - - - 0.68**

Household income( Less than 1.0 KMW)

1.1-2.0 - - 1.43** 1.43**

2.1-3.0 - - 2.30** 2.32**

More than 3.0 - - 3.56** 3.67**

Don’t know - - 1.29** 1.30**

Duration of marriage[in years] 0.97** 0.97**

Children[None]

1 - - 0.79** 0.79**

2 + - - 0.81** 0.81**

How couple met (Through an agency)

Through family members - - 1.24** 1.24**

Through friends or co-workers - - 1.17** 1.18**

Others (religious group, by self and etc.) - - 1.14** 1.15**

AIC 56618 54642 55234 51352

Interactive Effect

Lower education for wife* Duration of m

arriage 0.99** 0.97**

Higher education for wife* Duration of

marriage 0.97 1.00

AIC 54235 54198 * P<.05 **P<.01 a Models control for migrant women characteristics, husbands characteristics and couple characteristics, full results

from these models available upon request.