Children's Bullying Victimization and the Acculturative Stress of Immigrant Mothers in Korea: Exploring Heterogeneity by Mother's Country of Origin

Objectives: Over the past three decades, the number of multicultural families in Korea, defined as a family consisting of a native Korean and a marriage immigrant, has increased significantly. Although bullying victimization among multicultural family youth is rightfully a growing concern, less is known about the effects bullying has on immigrant mothers of children who have been bullying victims. Method: Using data from the Multicultural Adolescents Panel Study, this study investigates whether children's bullying victimization is associated with immigrant mothers' acculturative stress and whether this association differs depending on mothers' country of origin (China, Japan, and Southeast Asian countries). Results: Fixed effects estimates revealed that children's bullying victimization is positively associated with their immigrant mother's acculturative stress, and this association is robust to controlling for unobserved time-constant individual-level heterogeneity. When stratified by mother's country of origin, the association was larger and statistically significant only among Southeast Asian mothers. No associations were observed among Japanese and Chinese mothers. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that interventions aiming to support bullied children should be expanded to also support their immigrant mothers. Policymakers may wish to consider the specific backgrounds and contexts of immigrant mothers, with special attention to Southeast Asian women.