International marriage has been rapidly growing in Korea along with the widespread globalization and internationalization. In particular, the number of foreign women who get married to Korean men living in rural community has been rapidly increasing, ...
International marriage has been rapidly growing in Korea along with the widespread globalization and internationalization. In particular, the number of foreign women who get married to Korean men living in rural community has been rapidly increasing, drawing attention to their adaptation to Korean society. As a result, a number of education and training program have been developed and introduced to help them easily and quickly adapt to Korean society.
However, studies so far have focused on acculturation and acculturative stress of foreign wives. On the contrary, researchers have not paid much attention to how the rural elderly who have foreign daughters-in-law adapt to new and unfamiliar culture, how much stress they experience on the process and which factors can explain their acculturative stress, therefore conducting few related studies.
In this sense, this study intends to provide groundwork for the practical welfare system for the elder people with foreign daughters-in-law by examining their acculturative stress.
Specific questions raised in this are as follows.
First, how is the acculturative stress of elder people in rural community who have a foreign daughter-in-law?
Second, how are acculturative stresses are different according to the characteristics of the surveyed?
Third, what are the variables that affect the acculturative stress of elder people in rural community who have a foreign daughter-in-law? Based on the answers of these questions, this study tried to determine whether factors such as, the population sociological variables, the relationship with the foreign daughter-in-law, the level of social support for the rural elderly, the ways the rural elderly cope with stress, have correlation with acculturative stress.
This study surveyed the rural elderly aged 60 or older in the City of Moon-Gyeong who have a foreign daughter-in-law regardless of living together or not. The questionnaire restructured the acculturative stress measures in the 'Acculturative Stress for International Student' developed by Sandhu and Asrabadi(1994) for foreign students, which were translated into Korean by Lee Seung Jong(1996), to apply them to the surveyed.
In the survey, out of the 96 copies of questionnaires distributed from Oct. 20, 2006 to Nov. 22, 2006, 73 were returned and used for analysis. Collected data were analyzed by a variety of methods including technical statistics, reliability analysis, t-test, Pearson's Correlation, Multiple Linear Regression.
The results of this study are as follows.
First, 61 out of the 73 surveyed have lived with their foreign daughters-in-law for an average of 41 months with the ranges from 5 months to 132 months. The degree of communication between the surveyed and their foreign daughters-in-law was on average 3.05 out of 4, suggesting that they have a relatively good communication with their daughters-in-law. The satisfaction with their relationship with foreign daughters-in-law was on average(SD) 2.51(.31) out of the full score of 4 and the level of understanding about the native country of their daughters-in-law showed an average of 2.15(.91) out of 4. Social support for the rural elderly was relatively high with the average(SD) of 4.63(2.04) out of 6. Most frequently adopted ways to cope with stress by the surveyed was 'redefinition of the problem', with the average score(SD) of .73(.27)) out of 1, followed by 'passive avoidance of the problem'(.57(.26)), 'reliance on religion'(.38(.41)), and 'expression of feeling'(.37(.29)).
Second, none of the population sociological characteristics showed statistically significant difference. As for gender, acculturative stress was 2.09 for women and 1.89 for men, showing that women are likely to feel more acculturative stress than men. Acculturative stress was an average(SD) of 2.05(.70) for the elder people aged under 65 and an average(SD) of 2.01(.69) for the elderly aged more than 65. In terms of marital status, married(2.01(.66)) and bereavement(2.03(.74)) showed little difference in acculturative stress.
Third, among the bottom 3 aspects(perceived discrimination, perceived hostility, culture shock) of acculturative stress, the study first examined the relationship between perceived discrimination and population sociological factors, the relationship with foreign daughters-in-law, social support and the ways to cope with stress. However, it failed to show statistically significant results. For this variable, the goodness of fit of the total regression model was not significant with the value of F 1.718(p>.05) and the validity(R²) of the model was .311, with the value showing 31.1% through independent variables. The level of communication with daughters-in-law was the only category that showed significant results(β=-.432**).
Next, the study looked into the relationship between perceived hostility and independent variables which showed significant results. The goodness of fit of the total regression model was significant with the value of F standing at 2.074(P<.05) and the validity(R²) of the model was .353, with the value showing 35.3% through independent variables. The level of communication with daughters-in-law was most significant(β=-.399**) and the level of satisfaction with the relationship with daughters-in-law also showed significance(β=.278*).
The relationship between culture shock and population sociological factors, the relationship with foreign daughters-in-law, social support and the ways to cope with stress, was statistically significant. The goodness of fit of the total regression model was significant with the value of F 1.902(P<.05) and validity(R²) of the model was .334, with the value showing 33.4% through independent variables. Acculturative stress had a negative correlation with subjective health condition(β=-.319*) and had a positive correlation with the level of communication with the daughters-in-law.
And all categories of acculturative stress had a statistically significant correlation with population sociological factors, social support and the ways to cope with stress. That is, the goodness of fit of the total regression model was significant with the value of F showing 2.212(P<.05) and the validity(R²) of the model was .368, with the value standing at 36.8% through independent variables. Among these variables, only the relationship with foreign daughters-in-law showed significant results((β=-.485*).
These results indicate that acculturative stress of the elderly with foreign daughters-in-law has a negative correlation with the level of communication with their daughters-in-law and subjective health condition while showing a positive correlation with the satisfaction level on the relationship with daughters-in-law. Among these variables, in particular, better communication with foreign daughters-in-law helps the surveyed lower their acculturative stress. To do this, foreign daughters-in-law need to not only improve their verbal communication skills with the help of Korean language education, but also enhance indirect communication ability through raising acculturative skills and social adaptability. For their part, the rural elderly should treat their foreign daughters-in-law with continuous care and consideration for better non-verbal communication as well as verbal communication. They are also advised to organize a self-help group to share emotional support. That is, active and diverse efforts mentioned above should be made for better mutual understanding between foreign wives and their Korean parents-in-law.
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