Proposed SNA on the network of women with multicultural backgrounds

Nari Shim

Proposed SNA on the network of women with multicultural backgrounds

Not taking the second half module

South Korea is fast turning into a multicultural society as immigrants from Southeast Asian countries increase on a steady pace.  Men from this region are mostly working for factories under temporary contracts; majority of women immigrants have come to rural areas of South Korea to get married to peasant men. We say women’s desire to seek better lives in the hope to get out of poverty meets those peasant men’s needs:  rural peasants have been marginalized in the marriage market due to their hard life styles living as farmers and average South Korean women tend to be reluctant to marry to them.  Being isolated from the main market, rural farmers have inevitably turned their eyes to foreign women who are readily set for sharing hardships living on cultivation.  This kind of combination is nearly half of all marriages across rural areas and accounted for approximately 12% out of total marriage in 2010 from 3.2% ten years ago.    

Immigrant women who came to Korea with a sole purpose to get married have reportedly undergone hard times in adjustment to whole new settings: language barrier, cultural shock, no interpersonal connections, low kinship with husband, xenophobia especially prevalent in traditional rural areas, and sense of nostalgia are major challenges.  When these challenges are coupled with economic hardships, according to my experience of interviewing some immigrant women living in a rural area named ‘Chuncheon’, these women predominantly appear to consider ending marriage.  In the process of family separation, or divorce, domestic violence frequently occurs and it sometimes leads to social criminal acts, which poses serious challenges that the central government cannot overlook.

There might be intertwined reasons for the breakup of multicultural families in rural cities of South Korea.  Amongst many reasons would I assume that maladaptation of these women to new environments have given one cause for the breakup and this failure to adapt themselves to new settings would be largely attributed to lack of effective interpersonal communications.

In this sense, I would like to conduct a survey on women (I limited the scope for a cultural reason – strong distinction between men and women) from a small village in Chuncheon where almost half households have multicultural backgrounds. 

Using Social Network Analysis, I will attempt to determine how effectively immigrant women communicate with other women in the village.  I would be able to see how country of origin, interest, age, or each household’s economic status are reflected in the communication web.  It would also be interesting to see who are at the center of relationship among women in this village and how this person is connected and influencing other women.  

Understanding communication of women network in this small village through SNA might be able to present some essential points to the local government who are deeply concerned about assimilation of multicultural families on how to design and develop programs to facilitate helpful/effective networks within the community, which would eventually be helpful for laying foundation for healthy family.

My survey questions would be as follow:

1.     Your name?

2.     Your country of origin?

3.     Your Korean proficiency?

-       Fluent

-       Intermediate

-       Poor

4.     How old are you?

-       Less than 20

-       20~25

-       25~30

-       30~35

-       35~40

-       40+

5.     How long have you married?

-       1~2

-       3~5

-       5~10

-       10+ 

6.     Do you go to women’s meeting (held one a month) on a regular basis?

7.     Who do you speak to most on a daily basis? (Including one-on-one/telephone/skype etc)

-       Spouse

-       Children

-       Parents

-       Parents in laws

-       Community members

8.     What is your (or your spouse’s) job?

-       Farming

-       Small-business

-       Wage Labor

-       No job

9.     What is your household’s income level per year?

-       Less than $10,000

-       $10,000~20,000

-       $20,000~30,000

-       $30,000~40,000

-       $40,000+

10. Select your two main interests.

-       Food

-       Education

-       Child raising

-       Economic activities eg. farming, running small businesses

-       Korean culture

11. Who do you consult with when you have trouble? List name and relationship.