Ethnic Korean Youth’s Social Positions and Mental Health Across the USA, China, and South Korea

• In Event: Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Topic - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Abstract

Racial/ethnic minority youth in the United States are at higher levels of risk for various mental health issues, compared to White youth (Anderson & Mayes, 2010). The integrative model of minority child development posits that development of minority youth unfolds differently than that of the majority, and that influences of social positions and their derivatives (e.g., discrimination from majority) should be considered (Garcia Coll et al., 1996). However, immigrant youth are often found to exhibit better mental health outcomes than their native-born counterparts (McGuire & Miranda, 2008), presumably due to the most mentally healthy immigrants self-selecting themselves to stay in the host country (Kim et al., 2018). Past research guided by these theoretical frameworks has mostly focused on cross-racial/ethnic comparisons within the United States. It is unknown whether youth of the same ethnic group would exhibit different mental health outcomes given different social positions in different nations.
In the current study, we examined the mental health of ethnic Korean youth in three national contexts: the United States (Koreans are a racial/ethnic minority and 1st/2nd generation immigrants), China (Koreans are a native ethnic minority), and South Korea (Koreans are the ethnic majority). In our comparison, we controlled for an array of demographic covariates, including adolescents’ gender, age, family structure, perceived socioeconomic status, and religiosity. We then investigated how social stratification mechanisms (general societal discrimination and racial/ethnic discrimination) impacted the mental health of youth across societies where they held different social positions. We also investigated whether and how adapting cultural systems, including the maintenance of heritage culture (ethnic identity, parental cultural socialization), and minority-status-specific processes within multiethnic societies (preparation for bias, promotion of mistrust) related to youth’s mental health.
In 2014, 410 Korean American youth (Mage= 14.76, SD=1.91; 48.30% female; 58.29% U.S.-born) living in the greater Chicago area were surveyed. In 2017, 524 Korean youth (Mage= 15.10, SD=1.45; 50.00% female) residing in Seoul, South Korea were surveyed. Additionally, in 2019, 267 Korean Chinese youth (Mage= 15.24, SD=1.66; 58.90% female) living in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture of China were surveyed.
Cross-national comparisons of descriptive statistics are presented in Table 1. In line with the theoretical predictions, on average, Korean American youth exhibited the fewest mental health problems, followed by native Korean youth, and then by Korean Chinese youth. Results of linear and logistic regressions linking the above-mentioned predictors to youth’s mental health are shown in Table 2. Notably, both general discrimination and racial/ethnic discrimination by the majority group were significantly associated with more mental health problems, whereas ethnic identity was a protective factor for mental health issues across all three societies, regardless of youth’s majority/minority/immigrant status. Moreover, parental cultural socialization was found to be an adaptive socialization strategy linked to fewer suicidal thoughts in youth, whereas preparation for bias was maladaptive predicting more depressive symptoms across the United States and China.
Discussion will focus on other potential contextual confounders predicting the cross-national mean differences in Korean youth’s mental health and variations in the magnitudes of the above-mentioned associations across the three nations.

Authors

• Yishan Shen, Texas State University
  Presenting Author

• Hyunkyung Lee, Texas State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Yueqin Hu, Texas State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Yoonsun Choi, University of Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kihyun Kim, Sungkyunkwan University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Xiuying Yan, Yanbian University
  Non-Presenting Author