Domestic violence in Korean immigrant families

• Main Author: Yu, Sung-Hye
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-2000
• Subjects: Ethnic studies; Minority & ethnic groups; Sociology; Womens studies
• ISBN: 0493550275; 9780493550275

This study explores the relationship between immigration and domestic violence among Korean immigrant families. The Korean cultural and social context is stressed throughout the dissertation. The methodological approaches used in this study are both quantitative and qualitative. The quantitative part of the study examines the risk factors and predictors to the likelihood of wife battering among Korean immigrant men. A set of hypotheses is tested that compares batterers to a comparison group of community men for levels of traditional gender role attitudes, immigrant life dissatisfaction, emasculation, and female resistance. The qualitative part of the study highlights the voices of Korean male batterers and illuminates how domestic violence is personally experienced in their family lives. This study concludes that Korean male batterers tend to be younger, less educated, in a lower income bracket, in lower occupational categories, have a higher frequency of marriage, shorter years of marriage, and have fewer years of U.S. residency. The mean levels of immigrant life dissatisfaction, emasculation, and female resistance are significantly higher for the batterers than for community men. The level of traditional gender role attitudes shows no statistical difference between two groups. A series of logistic regression analyses shows that while controlling for all other variables, three (occupation, years of U.S. residency, and female resistance) are significant predictors to the likelihood of wife battering. Korean immigrant men in the skilled/manual occupational category are about three times more likely to be wife batterers than Korean immigrant men in all other occupational categories. Each year of U.S. residency for Korean immigrant men is associated with a 8% decrease in the risk of wife battering. The odds of wife battering increase significantly as the level of female resistance increases. Further, the combination of immigrant life dissatisfaction and high female resistance is significantly related to battering. Beliefs about traditional gender roles and behaviors, cultural values and norms, and changes in gender roles and relations within the immigration process are important parts of the gender dynamics in which domestic violence takes place in Korean immigrant families.