About 25 percent of children born to South Korean nationals and their foreign-born spouses do not identify themselves as Korean in spite of their South Korean citizenship, a study showed Thursday.
The report, released by the National Youth Policy Institute, surveyed 1,334 children of “multicultural” households — families that consist of South Korean nationals, their foreign-born spouses and their children — from 2011 to 2015. The children were all fourth graders in 2011 and were attending middle school as of last year. They were asked questions on their sense of identity and citizenship, as well as multiculturalism.
As of last year, more than 80 percent of all marriage immigrants in South Korea were women.
The report found that about 25 percent of the surveyed children either identified themselves as hyphenated Koreans, such as Vietnamese-Koreans, or a foreign national, despite holding South Korean citizenship. Each child’s relationship with their parents, especially the foreign-born mother, had the biggest influence on their ethnic and national identities, the report showed.
According to the research, schoolchildren whose mothers were interested in their academic performances as well as school life here were more likely to identify themselves as Koreans. Those who experienced bullying in school, those who did not have fulfilling relationships with their Korean teachers, and those who were born overseas and moved to South Korea after one of their divorced biological parents remarried a South Korean national were more likely to identify themselves as non-Koreans.
Other studies have shown that foreign-born, naturalized South Korean children are in need of more support when it comes to Korean education and job training, as they are more likely to have a stronger sense of belonging to their countries of origin.
A government report released earlier this year showed that more than 30 percent of foreign-born South Koreans aged 15-24 are not in school and out of work, while for 58.3 percent of them, their parents had divorced before they moved to South Korea.
“It is important for children of multicultural households to be well-adjusted to the mainstream society,” researchers wrote in the paper released by the National Youth Policy Institute “If they don’t integrate well, it can cause a number of social problems, such as segregation of minority groups as well as discrimination.”
However, Ahn Sang-soo, a researcher at the Korea Women’s Development Institute, said there is nothing wrong with hyphenated identities, such as Vietnamese-Koreans or Chinese-Koreans. “I don’t think it is necessary to assimilate all children of multicultural households so they can identify themselves as Koreans,” he told The Korea Herald. “What’s more important is to respect every individual’s sense of belonging and ethnicity while making sure they also feel connected to the mainstream society.”
As of this year, there are some 82,500 “multicultural” schoolchildren nationwide. They account for more than 2 percent of all elementary school students in the country.
By Claire Lee (dyc@heraldcorp.com)
