Cross-Border Marriages in South Korea and the Challenges of Rising Multiculturalism

This study explores trends in international marriage migration, determinants of international marriage, and factors that affect employment and poverty status of marriage migrant females in Korea. The results suggest that the number of cross-border marriages increased rapidly in the early 2000s but has declined since the mid-2000s, perhaps because of the Korean government's strict regulations and of saturation in the demand for foreign wives. The analysis also indicated that rural males with a graduate degree have a similar probability to urban males with a high-school education. Employment opportunities vary substantially by the foreign wife's country of origin, implying that social policies for addressing the difficulties of multicultural families should be tailored toward specific ethnic groups. Those who participated in work training programmes were significantly more likely to be employed than non-participants, and the size of social support network significantly reduced the odds of living in poverty.