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Review
. 2024 Nov 7:52:101228.
doi: 10.1016/j.lanwpc.2024.101228. eCollection 2024 Nov.

Racism and health in South Korea: history, concept, and systematic review

Hayoung Lee  1 , Eun-Ji Paeng  1 , Delanjathan Devakumar  2 , Mita Huq  2 , Garin Lee  1 , Seung-Sup Kim  1   3
Affiliations
Review

Racism and health in South Korea: history, concept, and systematic review

Hayoung Lee et al. Lancet Reg Health West Pac. .

Abstract

To understand racism and its impact on health in South Korea, it is essential to consider the political and social context of the migrant population, including ethnic Korean migrants, marriage migrants, migrant workers, and bi-ethnic adolescents. This paper has two goals. First, we examined the increasing trends of the foreign population in South Korea, with a focus on the growth of migrant workers and marriage migrants. Following this, we reviewed the historical contexts and discussed the characteristics of racism in South Korea: 'ethnic homogeneity', 'White supremacy', and 'ethnic discrimination against ethnic Koreans'. Second, we conducted a systematic review of 43 articles on the association between discrimination and health among racially and ethnically minoritized populations in South Korea. The review revealed statistically significant associations across various migrant groups but highlighted several limitations: all studies were cross-sectional, many used non-standardized discrimination measures, all focused on interpersonal discrimination, most examined mental health outcomes, and certain migrant groups were neglected in the research. Future research is needed to address these gaps.

Funding: This work was supported by the New Faculty Startup Fund from Seoul National University.

Keywords: Health; Migrant; Racism; South Korea; Systematic review.

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Conflict of interest statement

DD is the director and co-founder of the Race & Health group in UCL. All other authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Trends of foreign population in South Korea, 1984 to 2022. The total foreign population in South Korea includes all foreign residents who do not hold South Korean nationality. This encompasses both documented foreign nationals, regardless of their visa status or length of stay, and undocumented foreign nationals who have overstayed their permitted period but remain in the country. Please note that for the data in the year 2000, Korean government statistics did not provide information on undocumented migrants who had stayed for less than 91 days. As a result, we were unable to present separate numbers for the documented and undocumented foreign populations for that year and used only the total foreign population in the graph.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Trends of the migrant worker population in South Korea, 2004 to 2022. The total migrant worker population includes holders of E1-E10, H2, and C4 visas. Migrant workers under the Employment Permit System are limited to those with E9 visas.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Trends of the marriage migrant population in South Korea, 2009 to 2022. The marriage migrant population includes holders of F13, F21, F52, F61, F62, and F63 visas.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Foreign population in South Korea by country of origin in 2022. A-Total foreign population by country of origin (N = 2,245,912) B-Undocumented foreign population by country of origin (N = 411,270, 18.3% of the total population). The total foreign population in South Korea includes all foreign residents who do not hold South Korean nationality. This encompasses both documented foreign nationals, regardless of their visa status or length of stay, and undocumented foreign nationals who have overstayed their permitted period but remain in the country.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Flow chart of article selection process.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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