Kirogi Women’s Psychological Well-Being: The Relative Contributions of Marital Quality, Mother–Child Relationship Quality, and Youth’s Educational Adjustment

Abstract

The current study is based on the responses of 153 married Korean mothers accompanying their youth in the United States or in New Zealand while their spouses remained in Korea. Kirogi means “wild geese” in Korean and has come to refer to split-family transnational living for the sake of children’s education. Spillover, or a positive correlation, between indicators assessing marital and parent–child relationship quality was tested within the transnational family context. It was also hypothesized that mother–child relationship quality and youth’s educational progress would be positively and uniquely predictive of indicators of maternal well-being when compared with marital quality due to education-focused Confucian values among Koreans. Results indicated positive correlations between indicators of marital and parent–child relationship quality; and only measures of marital quality had unique associations with maternal well-being.