Importance of Family Values Differences Between Husbands and Wives in Determining Depression in Foreign Wives in Korean Multicultural Families: Examining the Moderating Effect of Social Support

Differences in value systems are often grounds for conflict in relationships. This is particularly the case for international marriages where spouses hold potentially different family values. This study thus investigated the effect of family values differences between Korean husbands and foreign wives on depression of the wives. It also attempted to examine the moderating effect of family, friend, and formal support. Findings showed that family values differences affected the wives' depression and family support had a significant moderating effect. Researchers recommended that practitioners should be attentive to values differences between the spouses when working with multicultural families.     

Social participation and transnational engagement among Korean residents in New Zealand: issues and implications for social work practice

Social work practice involving migration issues requires a good understanding of migrants' social engagement within their embedded context. The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of social participation and transnational engagement among Korean migrants in New Zealand. The findings from the study show that ethnic-based groups provide Korean residents with the opportunity to actively engage in social and civic practices. Korean migrants are also involved in transnational activities, promoting networks and interactions between the host society and the homeland. This paper suggests that social work with migrants should take into account migrant social capital in the present-day migration context.     

Understanding the cultural adaptation of foreign wives of South Korean men

‘International marriage’ has increased within rural areas in South Korea. As an increasing number of rural women move to urban areas, men are left facing the challenges of finding appropriate spouses. This issue stimulated support for ‘international marriages’ by the Korean government. A review was carried out of the literature of foreign wives' cultural adaptation in South Korea using the ecological systems. While foreign wives have escaped the hardships of lower economic status in their home country, they often face new challenges in South Korea. The article recommends that one-stop multicultural services are needed to address the cultural issues facing non-Korean women.     

Transnational ethnic networks and the creation of immigrant social capital: A multilevel analysis

This study examines the network determinants of post-migration social capital among a group of foreign wives living in Korea. Based on a newly collected dataset, which consists of representative samples of Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese women, it analyzes how and to what extent the survey respondents’ preexisting transnational ties to prior co-ethnic migrants in Korea influence their differential access to social capital. Two measures of social capital are used: the size of friendship network with native Koreans and the prestige score of occupational categories of the network contacts. Multilevel analysis reveals that while controlling for a host of individual- and contextual-level factors, ethnicity-based networks are significant in allowing foreign wives to build social capital in the host society. However, not all network relations have a uniform causal impact. Rather, they have a contingent role in the formation of post-migration social capital.     

No te dejes pisotear por nadien: Examining Latino Immigrants' Efforts to Resist Discrimination

ABSTRACT

Latino immigrants in the United States face a hostile climate, including policies that reinforce community-level prejudices and acts of discrimination. Discrimination has an impact on the well-being of individuals who are targeted. The purpose of this study was to learn from Latino immigrant parents about responses to incidents with discrimination, including the process by which they determine how to respond. Fifty-four Latino immigrants participated in in-depth interviews. Using constructivist grounded theory methods, a model was developed to reflect participants' responses to discrimination. Findings indicate Latino immigrants' responses to discrimination evolve in a consciousness-raising process, including five phases of awareness: recognizes discrimination; questions discrimination; engages in reflection/dialogue on issues of race and discrimination; acknowledges value in self; and takes action. Moving through these phases, participants are more critically reflective on personal experiences and larger environmental contexts. Participants also engage in assessment of risks and opportunities when deciding how to respond to discrimination. Documentation status, English proficiency, and knowledge of systems of care affected their ability/decision to advocate. This study offers guidance for social service providers to support and collaborate with immigrants to increase their capacity to advocate. Findings suggest that future research is needed to explore the connection between phases of response and well-being.     

We're All in This Together: Context, Contacts, and Social Trust in Canada

How do conditions of diversity and inequality affect the sense of solidarity with each other that is manifested as social trust? This article brings together the literatures on racial heterogeneity, inter-group contact and relative deprivation to test and enrich the existing theoretical understanding of trust. It explores the effects of city and neighborhood contexts, individual experiences of inter-group relations, and their moderating effects on social trust. Findings suggest that the influence of a city's level of ethnic/racial diversity and income inequality is conditioned by inter-group social ties and experiences of discrimination. By considering the characteristics of neighborhoods, racial diversity of cities no longer has any significant association with trust in others. However, income inequality at the city level interacts with experiences of discrimination to undermine trust. Public policies aimed at improving social cohesion would benefit from considering the joint impact of economic and social policies that regulate resource distribution and hence shape inter-group relations.     

Optimistic but Confused: Perceptions about the Mission and Core Values of Social Work in Vietnam by Vietnamese Policy‐makers,Social Work Faculty and Practitioners

In 2010, the Vietnamese government officially recognized social work as a profession. This study explores whether key stakeholders in the development of social work in Vietnam (i.e. policy‐makers, pioneering educators, and practitioners) had reached a shared understanding about the mission and core values of Vietnamese social work by the end of 2015. An exploratory survey was conducted with 65 participants representing key stakeholders of social work in Vietnam. Participants had a shared but rather generic, at times vague, and overly optimistic view of the mission of Vietnamese social work as a “helping profession” that would be able to solve every social problem and present in all areas. There was a strong, unanimous desire for Vietnamese social work to focus on human dignity, social justice, and individuals’ rights, mixed with the preservation of Vietnam's collective, community‐based culture under the central guiding role of the state.     

The Soviet 'wife-activist' down on the farm

Parties independent of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) were not formally permitted and non-party groups and movements needed the CPSU's approval to be allowed to form and survive. This was the situation up to Gorbachev's process of democratization. However, the CPSU had occasionally allowed the existence of social organizations which served the party and socialism and were perceived as ideologically non-threatening. One such was the 'movement of wives' ( dvizhenie zhen ) formed in the 1930s but not part of the party structure, but at best the wives could work within the boundaries of party policies. They tried to make daily life better for themselves, their husbands, children and the local community. Analyses have focused mainly on the movement as an urban phenomenon but they spread to farms and the rural sector. This article discusses their role in this context.     

韩国应对新冠疫情冲击的社会经济政策及其绩效分析

新冠病毒疫情对韩国社会经济产生了严重的影响,韩国政府采取了多方面的社会经济政策防控疫情,取得了较好的成效,也存在着教训。政府在疫情发生时快速响应,启动公共卫生防疫体系,是使疫情得到有效控制的重要因素。但是在宗教活动中多次发生集体感染,是值得总结的教训。为了应对新冠疫情对社会经济的冲击,韩国政府采取一系列措施较好地控制了疫情在全国范围内的大规模扩散和蔓延;同时,积极采取扩大财政预算、促进对外贸易、扶持受疫情严重影响的产业以及宽松的货币政策等一系列宏观经济政策以及稳定就业、发放灾害补助、支援企业发展等微观经济措施,恢复经济发展。     

The Role of Social Contact in the Experience of Discrimination: Implications for Subjective Health Among Marriage Migrant Women in South Korea

Several studies have found that various social contexts could serve a protective role for minorities facing discrimination. One of these contexts is frequency of social contact, which is known to be positively associated with health outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examine the frequency of social contact with various social groups as a protective factor against the negative association between perceived discrimination and subjective health. Using data from the 2009 Korean National Survey of Multicultural Families, a total of 27,083 marriage migrant women were analyzed via hierarchical multiple regression. After controlling for socio‐demographic factors and Korean proficiency, the experience of discrimination was found to be significantly associated with lower levels of subjective health (B = ?0.22; P < 0.001). More frequent meetings with one's family of origin (B = 0.02; P < 0.01) and in‐laws (B = 0.06; P < 0.001) were associated with higher levels of subjective health, while more frequent meetings with neighbors were negatively associated (B = ?0.02; P < 0.001). More frequent contact with one's family of origin (B = 0.03; P < 0.05), rather than with other groups, such as friends from their country of origin, in‐laws, and neighbors, seemed to reduce the negative influence of discrimination on subjective health.     

Anticipated and Experienced Changes in Activities After Husbands Retire

Abstract

As an element of anticipatory socialization, ability to predict future roles accurately may impact subsequent adaptation. Part of a larger study of retirement and marital quality, this longitudinal research examined husbands' and wives' (n = 61 couples) anticipations of change (more/less/same) in six individual and joint activities following husbands' retirement, and compared them with couples' reported experiences a year after husbands had retired. With the exception of household tasks, continuity in levels of activity from pre- to post-retirement was greater than couples had anticipated. Cross-classification of responses at baseline and Time 2 indicated only modest congruence between anticipated and experienced change in activities. Accuracy of anticipation was not related significantly to retirement satisfaction as hypothesized, but direction of retirement-satisfaction mean scores, especially among wives, suggest that future testing would be warranted.     

Identity Adaptiveness: Affect Across Multiple Identities

Most empirical work that examines the effects of stereotypes on targets considers only one of a target's many social identities. This study examined how individuals implicitly affectively orient themselves toward their social identities in situations in which one or another of these identities is relatively adaptive. An adaptive identity is one associated with stereotypes that predict desirable performance in a given context. One hundred and twenty-one Asian American females generated ethnicity- and gender-related memories in contexts in which their gender identity was relatively adaptive, their ethnic identity was relatively adaptive, or neither identity was relatively adaptive. Self-reported affect expressed in these memories was analyzed. In a context in which their ethnic identity was adaptive, participants generated more positive ethnicity-related memories than gender-related memories. In contrast, in a context in which their gender identity was adaptive, participants generated more positive gender-related memories than ethnicity-related memories. When neither identity was adaptive participants expressed similar affect toward both. Similar results were found when blind raters coded memory affect. Findings suggest that stereotypes and different social contexts do not simply result in targets' "identification" or "disidentification" along a single dimension of identity, but rather prompt a reorientation of implicit affect across their multiple identities.     

Social work in a conflict context: Challenges facing social workers with indigenous inhabitants of unrecognised villages in Israel

This qualitative study presents the experiences of social workers whose clients are the inhabitants of unrecognised Bedouin Arab villages in Israel. It used in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews with 25 participants, recruited by the snowball method. These social workers reported that they are caught between their personal and professional values, on the one hand, and employer regulations, government policy and government law, on the other – which greatly limits their ability to fulfil their professional role. The social workers also comment that they are working in a ‘grey area’ in which the government’s policy is unclear. This adds another layer of complexity to their work and reveals the differential implementation of critical social work principles by social workers with different cultural identities.     

Effects of a Solution-Focused Program on the Reduction of Aggressiveness and the Improvement of Social Readjustment for Korean Youth Probationers

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this investigation was to explore appropriate intervention methods for helping Korean youth probationers reduce their aggressiveness and increase their social adjustment. This study examined the effectiveness of solution-focused group treatment with Korean youth probationers using a pre- and post-test control group design. The researcher randomly assigned the consented 40 participants either to an experimental group that received the solution-focused session or to a control group that took individual supportive sessions on a needed basis. The pre- and post-test scores of each group were compared using the Aggressiveness and Social Readjustment Questionnaire to confirm the levels of statistical significance between the two groups. Results indicate that solution-focused group treatment was followed by positive changes with the participants' aggressiveness and social adjustment problems. This study also suggests that a solution-focused program is an appropriate short-term intervention for Korean probation youth.     

Changes in characteristics of ego-centred networks of female immigrants married to Korean men

This study explores the relationships between social support and social networks of female immigrants married to South Korean men, using two-year data on migrant wives from the Gyeonggi Welfare Panel and an ego-centred network approach. The results suggest that a larger network with less cohesive ties provides more diverse social support for migrant wives. Migrant wives gradually reduce dependence on their family-in-laws and play roles of support givers for those with the same nationality by sharing their experiences in South Korea. The ego-centred network analysis provides a comprehensive understanding of the social networks of married migrant women in South Korea.     

Caste and Distributive Justice: Can Social Policy Address Durable Inequalities?

This article examines the impact of social policy interventions on caste inequalities. The article accepts the proposition by Charles Tilly that durable inequalities are entrenched solutions while addressing organizational problems of society. The political economy approach to caste enables us to understand how the discriminatory practices around caste are durable. The article examines two types of social policies set up to deal with caste discrimination. The first type of policies are particularistic policies which directly address the concerns of the members of the depressed castes. The second type of policies are aimed at the general population, but from which a large number of depressed caste members benefit. The article concludes that both types of policies have only an ameliorative function rather than an emancipation role. It is argued here that ‘social policy’ in the context of durable inequality requires redefinition to include political interventions. The administrative view of social policy focuses heavily on the state, and in the context of durable inequality, the legitimacy of the state itself is in question. On the other hand, mobilization around politics addresses the organizational anomaly of the society, which is at the root of durable inequality.     

Social Support for Mothers of Children With Disabilities in China

ABSTRACT.

This article analyzes the gendered parenting experiences of mothers of children with disabilities in China. These mothers struggle to meet their children's needs, including daily care, financial security, and child development. In the context of China's social welfare development, are social services responding to their needs, so that mothers can share responsibility for the needs of their children with disabilities? The research analyzed qualitative data about 6 case-study children in rural and urban China. The data were derived from observation and interviews with their parents and other family and community members. The analysis revealed that the capacity of the mother, community, and local social services had an impact on the rights of the children and mothers. They experienced social discrimination, insufficient social support, and local failure to implement central policy social services and income support. These findings are consistent with international research about disability rights. They reinforce the importance of economic redistribution to enable local implementation of the national disability rights policies, rather than merely relying on ephemeral concepts of cultural change. Further research about the comparative impact of economic and social change in China on mothers and children with disabilities would extend these findings.     

Women Reconciling Paid and Unpaid Work in a Confucian Welfare State: The Case of South Korea

The participation of married women in the labour market has been increasing since industrialization in the 1960s in Korea; in 1999 it overtook that of unmarried women. This raises the issue of how women reconcile paid and unpaid work and how state policy responds to this issue. In Korea, there have been numerous policy reforms designed to support working women in combining work and family life. For example, a parental leave scheme was introduced in 1995 and maternity benefits were also introduced in 2001. However, it is doubtful whether these policies can be effective in practice in Korea, where Confucian traditions in respect of women's roles remain strong. Confucian tradition has long influenced Korean society culturally and socially. Although Korean society today is not as Confucian as in the past, some traditions still remain strong, particularly with regard to the family: for example filial piety, seniority, the married woman's responsibility for her parents‐in‐law. This paper will argue that Confucian tradition makes for difficulties in Korean women's experiences of reconciling paid and unpaid work and also affects the formation of state policy. The paper explores the impact of the Confucian welfare regimes on Korean women's experience of reconciling paid and unpaid care work, and questions the gendered characteristics of the Confucian welfare state.     

‘Let the King Save the Poor’: The Discursive Mechanism Underlying the Under‐exercise of Social Rights in South Korea

This study was prompted by discrepancies observed between the quantitative expansion and the qualitative stalemate in social policy in South Korea. Despite a revamped social security system, changes in South Korean social policies have not led to significant coverage expansion or improved income and poverty distribution. The frequent appearance of the Korean proverb that ‘even the King cannot save the poor’ in policy participants' narratives reflects a lack of confidence in the Government's ability to address persistent social disadvantages and the prevalence of a fatalistic policy perspective. This proverb has a conceptual affinity with an individualistic approach and has effectively functioned as a governance tool to oppress the progress of welfare rights. This research shows that an expenditure‐based model could lead to actual policy situations being misrepresented. Further, institutional policy arrangements may not be a sufficient condition for improving policy performance. It is suggested that a rights‐based approach should be adopted for both theorization of the transition of the welfare regimes and discursive practice for a policy paradigm change.     

Social policy and family relations: Choices for change

This article examines the relationship between social security policies and the trend toward greater equality in family life. The declining birth rate and increasing labour-force participation of women, among other factors, have altered the traditional division of labour in family life on which many social security policies were originally predicated. As the traditional guidelines dissolve, two schools of feminist thought suggest alternative ways that husbands and wives should divide their labour to fulfil domestic responsibilities. These perspectives on gender equality in family life are analysed in terms of their implications for social security policies. The merits of these approaches to policy are assessed in light of their impact on social choice, independence, self-realization, and family stability.