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Health of International Marriage Immigrant Women in South Korea: A Systematic Review

Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health volume 20, pages 717–728 (2018)Cite this article

Abstract

International marriage migration is now one of the most prominent forms of migration in Asia, and the number of women migrating to South Korea for marriage has increased dramatically in the last two decades. In this article, we provide a systematic review regarding the health status and health-related issues of international marriage immigrant women. The literature search identified 620 articles, of which 53 studies are presented in the article. Three overarching categories including six subcategories were identified according to the research focus; ‘Environmental factors of health’ including social support and barriers, ‘Health status’ including physical, psychological and social health, and quality of life as ‘Outcome of health’. Overall women immigrants by marriage showed relatively poor health outcomes. Social support was an important factor affecting the health status and quality of life in this population. We offer recommendations to develop and implement culturally and linguistically appropriate health promoting programs for international marriage immigrant women in South Korea.

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Funding

This study was funded by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (Grant Number 2014R1A1A1007686) and a research grant in 2014 from the Department of Nursing Science, Graduate School, Ajou University.

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  1. College of Nursing, Institute of Nursing Science, Ajou University, 164 Worldcup-ro, Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, 16499, Republic of Korea

    Jeong-Ah Ahn, Eun Ha Roh & Ju-Eun Song

  2. School of Nursing, Bouvé College of Health Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA

    Tiffany Kim

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  1. Jeong-Ah Ahn
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Correspondence to Ju-Eun Song.

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Ahn, JA., Kim, T., Roh, E.H. et al. Health of International Marriage Immigrant Women in South Korea: A Systematic Review. J Immigrant Minority Health 20, 717–728 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-017-0604-6

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Keywords

  • Health disparities
  • Immigration
  • Social policy
  • Systematic reviews
  • Women’s studies