Envisioning Intimacy and Families: Partnering Pathways among Second-Generation Young Adults in South Korea

• In Event: International Migration Section Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 23. Family, intimacy, and belonging

Abstract

This study examines how young adults from immigrant families in South Korea navigate partnering, focusing on racial preferences, romantic experiences, and family formation plans. Moving beyond adolescent attitudes, the study investigates how early orientations toward interracial intimacy translate into concrete partnering pathways in early adulthood. Drawing on in-depth interviews with nineteen adult children of immigrants, the analysis explores how race and ethnicity, stigma, national belonging, family expectations, and economic constraints shape intimate decision-making. The findings reveal that partnering is not a linear indicator of assimilation, but a negotiated process shaped by life-course sequencing, racialized experiences, and intergenerational dynamics. By situating second-generation partnering within the context of state-driven migration and emerging multiculturalism, this study extends scholarship on marital assimilation and racial boundary making beyond Western contexts.

Author

• Jeewoo Shin, University at Albany, SUNY