Marriage migration from one Asian country to another has been a noteworthy phenomenon in East and Southeast Asia during the past two decades (Jones & Shen, 2008; Piper, 2003). So far, South Korea (hereafter, Korea) and three other Asian countries – Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore – have become popular destination countries for Asian bride migrants. As of 2009, for instance, more than 75 percent of all international marriages in Korea – 25,142 marriages – involved foreign immigrant brides, largely from other Asian countries like China, Vietnam, Philippine and Japan, marrying Korean men (National Statistical Office, 2010). On the one hand, the feminization of migration in Asia can be an important force in this large-scale arrival of ethnic Asian brides into Korea. This is because the feminization of international migration has to do with globalization and its influences on the occurrence of cross-national differences in economic and employment opportunities, the gendered division of global labor – i.e., domestic work, care work, sex work, or low-paid work in other service sectors, and reproductive labor at the global level – e.g., cross-border marriages (Constable, 2009; Ehrenreich & Hochschild, 2003). On the other hand, the recent growth of ethnic Asian brides in Korea can also to some degree be explained by efforts to arrange international marriages for Korean men by international- networking matchmaking (brokerage) firms, local governments in Korea, and international religious organizations (Lee, 2008). Our study takes a particular interest in overall life satisfaction among these ethnic Asian brides living in Korea after their marriage with Korean men. Life satisfaction is here viewed as an important component of one’s subjective quality of life, also known as subjective well-being (Campbell, 1981; Diener, 1984; E. Diener & M. Diener, 2009; Michalos, 1986; Ryff, 1989; Tov & Diener, 2009). After resettlement in Korean society, securing and enhancing personal life satisfaction can be a real challenge for ethnic Asian brides.

In this study, we address the importance of ethnic Asian brides’ cultural orientations for their overall satisfaction with life in Korean society. The influence of one’s cultural orientations on subjective well-being, including life satisfaction, has become one of the main themes in cross-cultural psychology and other related disciplines (Brewer & Chen, 2007; E. Diener & M. Diener, 1995, 2009; Schimmack et al., 2002; Tov & Diener, 2009). More specifically, our study focuses upon two types of cultural orientations: Asian cultural collectivism and acculturation to Korean society. First of all, Asian cultural collectivism puts great emphasis on relationship, group norms and values (interdependence, harmony and conformity), group identity (a sense of identification with others), and the priority of group goals over individual goals – e.g., commitment (Brewer & Chen, 2007; Hui & Triandis, 1986; Soh & Leong, 2002; Triandis, 1996, 2001). There are two divergent hypotheses on how cultural orientations to Asian cultural collectivism will influence life satisfaction. On the one hand, a person’s evaluation or public expression of his or her life satisfaction often tends to be suppressed, and even be devalued in East Asian nations in which collectivist cultures predominate over individualist cultures. As a consequence, it has been shown that life satisfaction is relatively low among Asian people compared to Westerners (Diener et al., 1995, 1999; Sheldon et al., 2004; Tov & Diener, 2009). On the other hand, some scholars have suggested the contrary argument that individual life satisfaction would be improved because collectivist norms and values are genuinely integrated with, and internalized within one’s self concept (Chirkov et al., 2003; Crocker et al., 1994; Oishi & Diener, 2001). However, the question of whether Asian cultural collectivism plays a significant role for Asian immigrants’ life satisfaction in another Asian country is little known so far. Therefore, this paper attempts to examine whether and to what extent ethnic Asian brides’ life satisfaction in Korean society is affected by the collectivist cultural orientations that are deeply ingrained in many Asian societies.

Second, our study also addresses the significance of Asian immigrants’ acculturation in another Asian country for their subjective well being. Here, acculturation refers primarily to immigrants’ adoption of the cultural values, traditions, and standards of the host society. Acculturation has been understood as a key component and the first stage of the immigrant assimilation process in the host society (Alba et al., 2002; Alba & Nee, 1997, 2003; Gordon, 1964). By introducing the concept of acculturative stress, some studies have associated immigrants’ acculturation process in a host society with mental health problems – e.g., anxiety, depression, psychosomatic symptoms, identity confusion, and feelings of alienation (Berry, 1997; Berry et al., 1987; Ward et al., 1998). However, very little is known about the specific impact of Asian immigrants’ acculturation experience on their overall life satisfaction in another Asian country. What we would predict is that ethnic Asian brides married to Korean men would strive to identify, and then embrace, a general mode of Korean values and standards to better assimilate into Korean society. Here, we measure their acculturation to Korean society through knowledge about Korean history and traditions, Korean language skills, their self-identification as Korean, and so on.

In sum, we argue in this paper that these two types of cultural orientations are critical to one’s life satisfaction in a new society. Ultimately, marriage migration from one Asian country to another has made it possible for ethnic Asian brides married to Korean men to retain Asian cultural collectivism and simultaneously to access a general mode of Korean cultural patterns (acculturation). Below we also take into account ethnic identity, self-esteem, and stress as the other important determinants of ethnic Asian brides’ life satisfaction in Korean society. The subjects of our study were selected from three distinctive groups of ethnic Asian brides married to Korean men and living in Korea – Japanese, Chinese, and Vietnamese women – to test the research inquiries proposed above.¹

Like Korea, three other Asian countries of the East and Southeast Asian regions – China, Japan, and Vietnam – have long traditions of collectivist cultures. Indeed, some patterns of these four Asian nations’ collectivist cultures have been very similar over their different historical stages, owing to their sharing of Confucian values and traditions that were introduced in ancient China. Even in these four contemporary Asian countries, Confucian values and traditions, called Confucianism, are still to some degree imbued in their core cultural modes (Guthrie, 2009; Kibria, 2000; Koh, 1996; Shin, 2005; Smith, 1996). Indeed, what these countries have shared in common is the collectivist cultural values and norms of the patriarchal family and society, in which the father (or the eldest male), as head of the family, has full authority over any other family members, and, at a societal level, authoritarian leaders exert their power and governance over other social members (Bedford & Hwang, 2003; Kibria, 1993, 2000; Lebra, 1998; Park & Cho, 1995; Smith, 1996). Moreover, people living in Asian collectivist cultures tend to put more emphasis on group goals, relationship harmony, or interdependence than on their own personal goals, needs, or independence (Triandis, 1996). At the individual level, these Asian people are socialized to define themselves in such a way that the self is inseparable from their relationships with others and their ingroup identification (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Triandis et al., 1985). Thus, they become collectivists (or group-oriented people) who appraise relational harmony and group goals as their priority, and who consider group identity as part of their personal identity. An important research question is whether such collectivist cultural orientations affect their satisfaction with life.

Past cross-national studies have shown that Asian people scored lower in life satisfaction than people from Western nations (Diener et al., 1995; Sheldon et al., 2004; Suh, 2002). Basically, we argue that Asian people’s relatively lower score in life satisfaction can be understood as an outcome of their collectivist cultural orientations, which often prioritize relationship harmony and group goals over individual needs and goals. For instance, people often feel less satisfied with life at times when personal duty or obligation is enforced by external sources that aim to prioritize group goals (Chirkov et al., 2005; Sheldon et al., 2004). Therefore, Asian people’s involuntary conformity with group norms can operate as a negative force on their life satisfaction. Thus, Asian people’s relatively lower score in life satisfaction can have some bearing on their disposition towards self-criticism (Diener et al., 2003; Oishi et al., 2000). In collectivist cultures like those found in East Asian nations, expressions of personal interests and judgment can be considered serious impediments to group harmony and interpersonal relationships. Rather, such Asian cultures take the norm of humility and self-criticism (or self-effacement) as the most important virtues to be followed (Heine et al., 1999). This focus on personal humbleness or self-criticism can be another factor that has the potential to lower Asian people’s life satisfaction.

However, as others have argued, one’s collectivist cultural orientations can play a positive role in one’s life satisfaction. The influence of social norms on life satisfaction in collectivist cultures like those of Asian countries might be compared to the influence of emotion on life satisfaction in individualist cultures like those of Western countries (Suh et al., 1998). For instance, a study of life satisfaction from Hong Kong found that extroverted or group-oriented personalities tend to emphasize relational harmony, which causes them to experience increased life satisfaction (Kwan et al., 1997). From a sample of Asian Americans, there is also strong evidence that the pursuit of goals for one’s family and friends (group goals) is positively associated with one’s life satisfaction (Oishi & Diener, 2001). Although members of collectivist cultures might think of relationship harmony and group norms as social pressures in the short run, this is not the case when they gradually and intrinsically adapt to such collectivist cultural orientations through a long-term socialization process. The internalization of collectivist cultural values and norms in human nature can be expressed by the concepts of allocentrism and the interdependent self, both of which stress the importance of one’s relationships with others and ingroup identification in the construct of self (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Triandis et al., 1985).

To simplify, this suggests that one’s life satisfaction can rise in proportion to how well integrated one’s social values and norms are to one’s own identity. Prior to emigration to Korea, many ethnic Asian brides married to Korean men seem to have been to some degree socialized in the values of Asian collectivist cultures. Therefore, their Asian-oriented cultural values and identity are unlikely to disappear easily even after their resettlement in Korea. Moreover, contemporary Korean society has its own collective cultural traditions, particularly Confucian traditions that underscore such principles and practices as authority, filial piety, women’s subordinate status in the family, and the preference for male offspring. In other words, resettlement in Korea cannot be seen as an obstacle for the perpetuation of Asian cultural values and norms that are part of their identity. For ethnic Asian brides, the spread of the familiar collectivist cultural environment in Korean society may mitigate cultural shock, which can play a positive role for their life satisfaction in Korean society. To sum up, the first theme of the current study is to examine whether ethnic Asian brides’ recognition of familiar Asian-oriented cultural values and codes in Korean society affects their life satisfaction.

In Korea, there has been rapid influx of immigrants, whose numbers have risen from 490,000 in 2000 to 1.2 million in 2009 – almost 2.4 percent of the total population (National Statistical Office, 2010). Despite this recent population shift, contemporary Korea still remains an ethnically and culturally homogenous country in which a common national heritage, language, symbols, and traditions predominate. Contemporary Korea can be portrayed as a tight-knit network society where social relationships with others and group goals have priority over individual needs and goals. Another feature of contemporary Korean society is the preponderance of nationalism in which most Koreans tend to reveal their collective sense of identity, or their strong feelings of national unity, in times of proposing or pursuing nationalistic goals – e.g., national interests or security concerns from North Korea (Woo-Cumings, 2005). For those reasons, collective identification or the collective self, relative to the individual self, is characteristic of many Koreans (Alford, 1999).

A central theme of recent immigration studies in Korean academia is ethnic Asian brides’ unilateral acculturation toward Korean cultural patterns (Lee, 2005; Park & Chung, 2007; Seol & Yoon, 2008). On arriving in Korea, ethnic Asian brides married to Korean men go through the acculturation process by confronting, or learning for themselves, the collectivist cultural patterns of Korean society: in particular, Korean values, norms, and identity. As sole migrants, ethnic Asian brides in Korea cannot, for the most part, acculturate “on their own.” Prior to their arrival, it seems that their acculturation process is already, to a considerable extent, structured in the social institutions of Korean society. For instance, many Korean men marrying ethnic Asian women were from traditional families with relatively low socioeconomic status and primarily engaged in less prestigious and low-income jobs, such as blue-collar jobs, daily or part-time employment, self-employment, or farming. These omnipresent surroundings and the status of Korean men give a hint that some ethnic Asian brides cannot avoid taking on the traditional women’s roles assigned to them: being obedient housewives to husbands, daughters- in-law, and sisters-in-law, and the keepers of husbands’ family lineage.

By contrast, some ethnic Asian women before their marriages to Korean men might have been already familiar with the Korean culture, as well as the Korean language.² Indeed, this is the case of the Korean wave (or the Korean fever) that has been spreading across most East and Southeast Asian countries since 2001 (Cho, 2005). The Korean wave, expressed often as the widespread popularity of Korean movies, TV dramas, and pop music by mass communications across these Asian countries, tends to generate both positive images of Korean men and a longing for life in Korea for many Asian women, some of whom eventually marry Korean men. In general, our point here is that these ethnic Asian brides married to Korean men may see commitment to and sacrifice for Korean husbands and their family members as typical Korean cultural values and norms. When people feel a great sense of attachment to their significant others, it is known that they tend to internalize group orientations and regulations (Hui & Triandis, 1986; Ryan & Deci, 2000).

These principles and norms of relationship harmony in the traditional Korean family can be seen as a microcosm of larger Korean cultural patterns. Thus, ethnic Asian brides’ sense of relational harmony with those intimate or distant others outside the family, like their belongingness to various social units, can further strengthen their collective self by personifying common Korean values and norms – such as loyalty, conformity, and cohesion. Thereafter, ethnic Asian brides can have a better understanding of how Koreans develop their currently prevailing thoughts, beliefs, priorities, and expectations. From the ethnic Asian brides’ standpoint, their high-level internalization of Korean cultural patterns can be also considered an indication of their deep acculturation into Korean society. This account does not deny the fact that there are rising numbers of many ethnic Asian brides suffering from experiences of domestic violence or marital dissolution (divorce) (D.S. Kim, 2007; O. N. Kim, 2006). Nonetheless, our argument here is that ethnic Asian brides’ personal internalization of Korean cultural values and norms is very real indeed and strong enough to contribute positively to their life satisfaction in Korean society. This argument is consistent with the notion that one’s psychological well-being can be improved when collectivist cultural norms and values become integral to one’s own identity, or one’s primary goals (Chirkov et al., 2003; Oishi & Diener, 2001).

Moreover, linguistic assimilation is a key component of acculturation that can have an important influence on one’s life satisfaction in a new society. Thus, learning Korean is greatly important for ethnic Asian brides trying to adjust in Korean society. Their Korean language skills can even play a positive role in their evaluation of life in Korean society. Exchanges of opinions and information with the Koreans around them, by means of strong Korean communication skills (speaking, writing, and listening) can help promote their awareness of the prevailing Korean thoughts, beliefs, priorities, and expectations, including those of their Korean families and friends. Their strong Korean reading skills can also help them understand national traits, traditions, and standards of Korea, both historically and in the present day.

Ethnic identity often refers to an individual identification with, or a sense of belonging to a certain cultural community (Hutchinson & Smith, 1996). The subjects of the current study are Asian brides married to Korean men who migrated to Korea from Japan, China, and Vietnam. These three Asian countries are very different from each other in terms of historical experiences, national sovereignty, territorial locations, and cultural traditions and symbols like language, religion, and ethnicity. More importantly, ethnic identity can be a clear manifestation of differences in national traditions and circumstances among people of these three Asian countries. In some cases, ethnic identity might be indistinguishable from national identity – e.g., a sense of belonging to a large-scale collectivity like a nation-state as citizens, awareness of their national traditions, and their pride in national heritage, history and culture (Smith, 1986). As stated above, a great number of ethnic Asian adults have grown up in an atmosphere of collectivist cultures that put an emphasis on group norms and identity. Therefore, ethnic (or national) identity appears to make up not only their core social identity, but also an important part of their self-concept. The same may hold true for ethnic Asian brides who came to Korea as adults. Adult immigrants’ strong sense of ethnic (or national) identity can operate as an impediment to their cultural adjustment in a new country (Berry, 1997). This further suggests that the strong ethnic identity of ethnic Asian brides might come to be seen as a negative force on their life satisfaction in Korean society. However, there is reason to think that their ethnic identity has nothing to do with their life satisfaction in Korean society. As their years in Korea go by, the weakening of their ethnic (or national) identity can occur as a result of their naturalization as legal Korean citizens, and giving up the citizenship of their home country. In addition, the scale of ethnic Asian communities in Korea is still at an early stage (Seol & Skrentny, 2009). Thus, we may also come to the conclusion that their ethnic identity is no longer a significant predictor of their life satisfaction in Korea.

Self-esteem refers to an overall feeling of self-worth and self-respect (Rosenberg, 1979). In individualistic societies like the United States, people are often encouraged to assert themselves, evaluate themselves positively (e.g., competent and intelligent), or to separate themselves from others; on the other hand, people in Eastern cultures often regard themselves less positively, or more critically, than do people in Western cultures in order to achieve relationship harmony with others through self-control and self-restraint (Heine & Hamamura, 2007; Heine & Renshaw, 2002; Markus & Kitayama, 1991). For that reason, self-esteem has been seen as a more powerful predictor of one’s life satisfaction in Western cultures (Campbell, 1981; Diener & Diener, 1995, 2009; Rosenberg et al., 1995). However, some scholars doubt the importance of self-esteem in one’s life satisfaction in Eastern (or collectivist) cultures (Diener et al., 1995; Kwan et al., 1997). This is because Eastern cultures like Japan tend to take one’s need for self-esteem (or self-enhancement) as a barrier to one’s success (Heine et al., 1999). However, others have argued that people in all cultures, including Eastern cultures, have the self-enhancement motive or the need for self-esteem (Sedikides et al., 2003). For example, Japanese students at one university in Japan rated themselves more positively than they rated most other students (Brown & Kobayashi, 2002). At this point, we have little knowledge about whether there exists a difference in the evaluation of self-esteem between native-born Asians and Asian immigrants, such as ethnic Asian brides living in Korea. Furthermore, how ethnic Asian brides married to Korean men rate themselves is also unknown. Nonetheless, whether, and in what direction, ethnic Asian brides’ self-esteem affects their life satisfaction in Korean society is an important topic worth exploring here.

Immigration is a critical life event for anyone who has experienced it. For immigrants, migration can lead to stress (Pearlin et al., 1981; Thomas & Choi, 2006). In a new country, immigrants are more inclined to experience stress related to marital problems, cultural readjustment, a sense of isolation, and so forth (Mirdal, 2006). Indeed, resettlement and the accompanying formation of a family with a man of a different ethnicity in a new country must be a significant life event for an immigrant woman. It goes without saying that these marginalized immigrant women may also encounter many challenges in the new society – e.g., marital conflict, economic hardship, or cultural shock (Chin, 1994; Imamura, 1990). Asian ethnic brides married to Korean men are no exception. For instance, some ethnic Asian brides reported a lack of communication with their Korean husbands, experiences of verbal abuse or physical violence, or a readiness for divorce (O. N. Kim, 2006). Like with marital conflict, it is not difficult to predict that ethnic Asian brides will experience stress in the process of learning Korean as a new language and adjusting to unfamiliar Korean values and ways of life. Moreover, one of the major reasons why ethnic Asian brides decide to marry Korean men and live in Korea is to improve their economic well-being (Cho, 2010; M. J. Kim et al., 2006). However, many ethnic Asian brides appear to suffer from lasting economic hardships due to their Korean husbands’ low economic status and unstable sources of income. Lastly, ethnic-based bias and antagonism against Asian immigrants still exists to some degree in Korean society (Kim, 2009), which might be another possible source of stress for many ethnic Asian women, who unavoidably will interact with native-born Koreans. Overall, we must conclude that the higher the ethnic Asian brides’ exposure to the major sources of stress, the lower their life satisfaction in Korean society will be.

In East and Southeast Asia, a striking aspect of cross-border migration during the last two decades has been marriage migration from one Asian country to another. Indeed, Korea has become a country of destination for many ethnic Asian brides who were married to, or intended to marry, Korean men. However, little has been known about the effect of the shared cultural characteristics among Asian people on their life satisfaction in another Asian country. Likewise, little attention has been paid to the significance of ethnic Asian brides’ acculturation on their life satisfaction in another Asian country. Therefore, our study has addressed the significance of these two types of cultural orientations – Asian cultural collectivism and acculturation to Korean society – for life satisfaction among ethnic Asian brides married to Korean men and living in Korea.

First of all, we have examined whether and the extent to which Asian cultural collectivism would influence ethnic Asian brides’ life satisfaction in Korean society. In this paper, all ethnic Asian brides’ shared cultural characteristics, prior to their emigration into Korea, have been included in the term “Asian cultural collectivism,” a term that generally emphasizes relationship harmony, group norms and values, and group goals and identity over individual needs, goals, and self identity. According to our regression analysis from our total sample, Asian cultural collectivism has been proved to be critical for their improvement in life satisfaction in Korean society. Our regression analysis from a sample of Chinese brides has also revealed that their personal retention of Asian collectivist cultures contributes to their life satisfaction. To some degree, these results confirm the argument that one’s psychological well-being would rise at a time when one’s collectivist cultural orientations become one’s most important goals, and internalized within one’s own concept of self (Chirkov et al., 2003; Crocker et al., 1994; Oishi & Diener, 2001). On the other hand, our findings run counter to those of previous studies, in which cultural collectivism plays a negative role in life satisfaction among Asian people or Asian Americans (Diener et al., 2003; Kang et al., 2003; Sheldon et al., 2004).

Second, in our paper, the term “acculturation to Korean society” has been treated as the other form of their cultural orientations. More broadly, their acculturation to Korean society has been seen as encompassing one’s knowledge about Korean history and traditions, one’s emotional attachment to Korean people, one’s self-identification as Korean, one’s Korean language skills, and so on. Empirically, our study has measured acculturation to Korean society in two ways: Openness to/liking of Korean culture and Korean language skills. Looking at these two variables, we have proposed whether and the extent to which ethnic Asian brides’ acculturation affects their life satisfaction in Korean society. According to our regression analysis from the total sample, there has been clear evidence that both measures of acculturation are significant predictors of life satisfaction. To be sure, ethnic Asian brides’ life satisfaction in Korean society has also risen because of their increasing personal familiarity with Korean cultural traditions and standards. In general, these findings suggest that ethnic Asian brides’ acculturation to Korean society cannot entirely be seen as the byproduct of external pressures that took place with their involuntary or inescapable acquiescence. On the contrary, it is possible to infer that ethnic Asian brides married to Korean men have attempted to integrate prevailing Korean values, norms, and emotions into their own world. Moreover, their proficiency in the Korean languages has been a factor that exerts a positive effect on their life satisfaction in Korean society. Interestingly, our regression analysis from a sample of Vietnamese brides has also indicated that both measures of acculturation have positive effects on their life satisfaction. Though not directly related to life satisfaction, these results are similar to past research showing that immigrants’ preference and acceptance of the host society’s culture is negatively associated with their stress (Berry et al., 1987), and that their proficiency in the dominant language of the host society is also negatively associated with their stress (Williams & Berry, 1991). In the policy context, our overall findings here imply that multicultural programs of Korean language, culture, and history for ethnic Asian brides, especially those with lower economic and educational backgrounds, can promote their level of life satisfaction in Korean society.

One of the other significant findings in our study is that the retention of ethnic identity among ethnic Asian brides has been identified as a significant factor that lowers their life satisfaction in Korean society. Contemporary Korea, despite the recent growth of the immigrant population, is still an ethnically homogenous country where immigrants’ overt display of their ethnic identity in public may cause them to become a target of discrimination that would surely influence a pessimistic evaluation of their life there. Self-esteem, as another key control variable of this study, has been not a significant predictor of ethnic Asian brides’ life satisfaction in Korean society. However, the negative effect of stress on life satisfaction has been found from the analysis of our total sample. The regression analyses from our total sample and a sample of Chinese brides has revealed that good health conditions are another important predictor in eliciting a positive response to one’s life in Korea.

There are some limitations in our current study. First, we have not investigated whether ethnic Asian brides in Korea will take steps to rediscover, redefine, or even recreate some forms and contents of Asian cultural collectivism during their lifespan in Korean society. Thus, it may be true that their redefinition and reconstruction of Asian cultural collectivism after their resettlement in Korean society can have a substantial influence on their life satisfaction. Likewise, in our analysis, there was no way to identify whether and in what direction such predictors as gender equality and women’s rights, as the opposite of Asian cultural collectivism, affect their life satisfaction in Korean society. Therefore, future studies focusing on their life satisfaction will need to take into account both issues. Second, our current study is still, conceptually and analytically, less developed, regarding what specific conditions and mechanisms of the acculturation process exert a positive impact on life satisfaction among marriage migrants from one Asian country to another. Future studies also need to explore this issue more thoroughly. Third, our results need a cautious interpretation because our sample was obtained only from those Asian women participating in a Multi-cultural Family Support Center in Seoul. Thus, future studies should conduct Asian brides’ life satisfaction study by including their representative sample across geographical areas. Lastly, the current research on Asian brides’ life satisfaction in Korean society placed very little emphasis on feminist approaches to today’s feminization of international migration that shapes patterns of international marriages and reproductive labor across countries, gender hierarchy, and gender role expectations (Lee 2008; Piper, 2003; Truong, 1996). Future studies also should take into account this issue in examining the cultural forces of international brides’ life satisfaction in their new land.