Trend of Health of Adolescents from Multicultural Families in Korea

• In Event: 3181 - Section on Asia and Asian America Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 05. Health in Asia/ Asian America

Abstract

Since the 1990s, international marriage has been on the rise in Korea. These international marriages primarily consist of foreign-born brides from China and Southeast Asia married to South Korean grooms from rural Korea. Korea was known as a racially homogenous society for a long time; however, this perception is no longer valid. Due to the influx of the marriage immigrants and growing international marriages, the proportion of the children whose parents (either at least one of them or both of them) are foreign-born has also increased. Despite the rapid growth of this population and the importance of the health of children, surprisingly only a small number of studies has explored whether and how health of second generation immigrant adolescents may differ from their counterparts, and even among these studies, the findings are not consistent. Using data from the Online Survey of Health and Behaviors among Adolescents, conducted from 2011 to 2016, we investigated six health outcomes (i.e. self-rated health, stress level, global happiness, suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, and body mass index) of adolescents by immigrant status in Korea. Our preliminary results indicate that second generation immigrant adolescents tend to have lower levels of health in all of the six measures considered in this study compared to their counterparts. Further analysis will be conducted to estimate the net effect of being a second generation immigrant adolescent on health with various social factors accounted for, and to detect gender variations and changes in the associations over time.

Authors

• Hyeyoung Woo, Portland State University

• Lindsey Wilkinson, Portland State University

• Wonjeong Jeong, Yonsei University

• Sojung Lim, Utah State University