The Differences in Mental Health between Youth of Native Korean Backgrounds and Immigrant Backgrounds in South Korea
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47611/jsr.v10i2.1220Keywords:
Mental Health, Youth of Immigrant Backgrounds, Native Korean YouthAbstract
My study is designed to investigate the differences in mental health between youth of native Korean backgrounds versus the youth of immigrant backgrounds in Korea, who are called children of multicultural families. For this, I looked into data from the 15th Korean Youth Health Behavior Online Survey (2019), conducted by the Korean Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The main questions I address are whether there is a difference of general backgrounds between youth with Korean-born mothers and youth with foreign-born mothers, and whether there is a difference of mental health between youth with Korean-born mothers and youth with foreign-born mothers. In terms of general backgrounds, it has been the case that the educational level and socioeconomic status are lower for parents of multicultural families than those of Korean-born parents. The academic standing for youth from multicultural backgrounds has also averaged lower than that of youth from native Korean families. There was no meaningful difference, however, in terms of mental health of youth from multicultural families compared to youth from native Korean families. Based on such findings, I discussed several implications and limitations of this research.
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