ABSTRACT

Amid high hopes that the rise of international marriage will boost fertility rates in South Korea, this article assesses fertility differentials between Korean and international marriage couples. Espousing the theoretical position that fertility decisions need to be viewed from a couple perspective, we seek to build a new framework that goes beyond the traditional immigrant fertility literature. To test the formulated hypotheses, we compared fertility hazards among four couple types using the 2012 National Survey on Multicultural Families and the 2012 National Fertility Survey: couples consisting of a Korean wife and a Korean husband (Korean couples), couples consisting of a foreign wife and a Korean husband (foreign-wife couples), couples consisting of a Korean wife and a foreign husband (foreign-husband couples), and couples consisting of a foreign wife and a foreign husband (foreign couples). The results from Cox regression models revealed that the wives of Korean couples experienced the highest fertility hazards for the first birth, followed by the wives of foreign-wife couples. Furthermore, wives of Korean couples took the shortest time to give birth to the second child, followed by wives of foreign-husband and then foreign-wife couples. We discussed theoretical bearings of these findings and outlined a promising line of further research.

摘要

在人们寄希望于国际婚姻的增加将提高韩国的生育率的同时，本文评估了韩国和国际婚姻夫妇之间的生育率差异。从需要从几个角度看待生育决策的理论立场上，我们寻求建立一个超越传统移民生育文学的新框架。为了检验所提出的假设，我们使用2012年全国多元文化家庭调查和2012年全国生育率调查在四种夫妇中比较了生育风险：一对韩国妻子和一对韩国丈夫（韩国夫妇），一对外国妻子组成的夫妇和韩国丈夫（外籍夫妻），由韩国妻子和外籍丈夫（外籍夫妻）组成的夫妻，以及由外国妻子和外国丈夫组成的夫妇（外国夫妇）。Cox回归模型的结果表明，韩国夫妇的妻子在第一胎中生育风险最高，其次是外国夫妇的妻子。此外，韩国夫妇的妻子花了最短的时间生下第二个孩子，其次是外国夫妇的妻子，然后是外国妻子的夫妇。我们讨论了这些发现的理论依据，并概述了有希望的进一步研究方向。韩国夫妇的妻子花了最短的时间生下第二个孩子，其次是外国夫妇的妻子，然后是外国妻子的夫妇。我们讨论了这些发现的理论依据，并概述了有希望的进一步研究方向。韩国夫妇的妻子花了最短的时间生下第二个孩子，其次是外国夫妇的妻子，然后是外国妻子的夫妇。我们讨论了这些发现的理论依据，并概述了有希望的进一步研究方向。