Social determinants of health and wellbeing among commercially arranged Vietnamese marriage migrants (VMMs) in South Korea

In response to the drastically rising numbers of transnational marriages involving female spouses from less-developed Asian regions, Korean government has adopted large-scale policy changes to integrate female marriage migrants and their children. The VMMs are the largest group without ethnic linkage or geographical proximity and a majority of their marriages were arranged via commercial brokers. Investigation of the social factors of VMMs' health carries strong implications to their life trajectories and the development of future generations. OBJECTIVE: To examine the social determinants of VMMs' health after they migrated to Korea. METHODS: Data of 19,114 married, female VMMs were analyzed from the 2009 National Survey on Multicultural Families. A health and well-being index(alpha=.82) is composed of 6 questions on a five-point scale: perceived health, life satisfaction, and relationship wellbeing with spouse, children, and in-laws. Other covariates include dyadic characteristics, economic hardship, perceived discrimination, and immigrant characteristics. RESULTS: The mean age gap between VMMs and their husbands is 17 years. After holding other covariates constant, education of VMMs and their husbands, perceived SES of marital families, household income and economic hardship were significantly associated with the health outcomes, except for perceived SES of natal families in Vietnam. Among these factors,a strong predictor was how wealthy they perceived their marital families in Korea, with significant inter-group differences (ANOVA, P<.001; Sidak post doc: P<.001). CONCLUSIONS: Public health policies and welfare programs targeting both the VMMs and their husbands, especially those with less education or economic difficulties, may facilitate VMMs' integration into the Korean society.