Women from developing countries, where poverty and unemployment are chronic, are willing to leave their homelands and establish new lives in South Korea, expecting better living conditions. As a way to support their families in their homeland and, above all, to improve their lives, they choose arranged marriages. The integration of immigrant women into local society has recently become a relevant issue. Despite the increasing number of female migrants and the challenges they face in integrating into Korean society and culture, the South Korean government encourages such migrations in order to address a shortage of young female marriageables. Single Korean men in rural areas are most affected by this problem. Such a response from the government creates a very favorable environment for marriage brokerage agencies to expand their business. As a result, the majority of multicultural families in South Korea are made up of a Korean man and a foreign woman, living in a marriage, which was arranged through a marriage brokerage agency. Most of the men are from rural and poorer urban areas in South Korea, while women are from Asian countries such as China, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines. Rural and working-class men find it difficult to marry, because well-educated Korean women who have better economic circumstances, do not want to marry men of a low socio-economic status.
From the historical background and the current state in the field of international marriages and the process of getting married, I move on to present the marital life of female immigrants and their process of adjustment to life in South Korea, as well as answer questions such as: what hardships they go through, whether they get along with their husbands, and whether there are support programs that would make it easier for these immigrant women to integrate into Korean society and provide them the best possible quality of life.
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