Association between Racial Discrimination and Depressive Symptoms among Mixed Race Adolescents in South Korea

Backgrounds. South Korea has been regarded as an ‘ethnically homogenous society’ for a long time. Recently because of labor migration and international marriage, racial discrimination among immigrants and their children has emerged as a social issue in South Korea.

Methods. We analyzed the data from 2012 National Survey of Multicultural Families to examine the association between racial discrimination and depressive symptoms among 4,141 mixed-race adolescents in South Korea. Racial discrimination was assessed through self-reports. The perpetrators of racial discrimination were identified among friends, neighbors, teachers, siblings, and unknown. Depressive symptoms were assessed using a question, “During the past 12 months, have you ever felt so sad or hopeless almost every day for 2 weeks or more in a row that you stopped doing your usual activities?”

Results. The common perpetrators were friends (N: 241, 43.2%), followed by unknown (N: 67, 12.0%), and neighbors (N: 47, 8.4%) for the adolescents with racial discrimination (N: 558). Racial discrimination was associated with depressive symptoms (OR: 4.21, 95% CI: 3.24, 5.46) after adjusting for potential confounders including Korean language fluency. Racial discrimination from teacher was most strongly associated with depressive symptoms (OR: 5.80, 95% CI: 2.93, 11.46). Racial discrimination from the other four perpetrators was all significantly associated with depressive symptoms. The odds ratio for depressive symptoms for those exposed to one, two, three or more perpetrators were 4.04 (95% CI: 2.83, 5.75), 4.33 (95% CI: 1.92, 9.76 ), and 7.94 (95% CI: 3.65, 17.25).

Conclusion. Racial discrimination may increase the risk of depressive symptoms among mixed-race adolescents. This is the first study about racial discrimination and health among adolescents in South Korea.