The Impact of Acculturative Stress and Perceived Social Support on Depression among Foreign Wives of South Korean Men: A Focus on Direct and Moderating Effects of Perceived Social Support

Background and Purpose: In South Korea international marriage has been increasing rapidly as socially disadvantaged Korean males seek their marital partners in Asian countries of which economic conditions are lower than those of South Korea. Since most foreign wives of Korean men are either recent arrivals or new comers in Korea, they face many challenges in the process of adaptation to their new environment, particularly due to their limited ability to speak Korean as well as their lack of understanding of Korean culture and family system. While these female marriage immigrants may be subject to considerable stress in daily living, and some of them may even suffer from depression as they fail to deal with acculturative stress, literature on social support suggests that perceived availability of social support moderates the effects of stress on subsequent physical and psychological distress (DeLongis, Folkman, Lazarus, 1988). Thus, in this study we examine the impact of acculturative stress and perceived social support on depression among foreign wives of South Korean men, and explore the extent to which four different sources of perceived social support (i.e., husband, in-laws, friend, and social worker) moderate the impact of acculturative stress on these women's depression.

Method: 558 foreign wives (41.4% Vietnamese, 21% Chinese, 15% Philippines, 22.5% Others) from 36 agencies across the nation that provide multicultural family support program participated in this self-administered questionnaire study. Instruments used in this study included Acculturative Stress Scale (Sandhu & Asrabadi, 1994), Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Zimmet et al., 1988), and the CES-Depression Scale. Multiple regression analyses that included interaction term(s) were conducted, controlling for age, education, marital period, Korean proficiency, and perceived economic difficulty.

Results: As expected, foreign wives with a higher level of acculturative stress showed a higher level of depressive symptoms in all analyses (ps<.05). In separate analyses for each measure of perceived social support and its interaction term, each source of perceived support (i.e., husband, in-laws, friend, and social worker) had a significant direct effect on depressive symptoms (ps<.05), and none of the interaction term was significant. Only perceived spouse support showed a marginally significant interaction effect (p<.10), suggesting that perceived support from husband may reduce the impact of acculturative stress on foreign wives' depression. In an analysis of the full model, however, only two of the social support measures, perceived spouse support and friend support showed significant direct effects (ps<.05), and none of the interaction terms was significant.

Conclusions and Implications: These findings suggest that perceived support from husband, in-laws, friend, and/or social worker may have direct negative effects on depression among foreign wives in Korea rather than it moderates the impact of acculturative stress on these women's depression. To promote these marriage immigrant women's mental health it seems important to enhance social support from these sources, and to help them understand such support is available. Given the significant positive effects of perceived spouse support on foreign wives' mental health, efforts to enhance marital relations between these women and their Korean husbands are particularly needed.