KWDI Korean Women’s Development Institute

As transnational migration increased and migration for permanent residence sharply rose in the late 20th century, Korean society began to take interest in a multicultural society at the national level. Nations have different policies on transnational migration, including immigration policy centering on control at the borders, foreign workforce policy with a strong character of demographic and labor policy, and social integration policy with a goal to accept migrants of diverse ethnic backgrounds and coexist with them. This study focuses on policy on multicultural society at the social cohesion level.

In the late 1980s, civic groups had more interest in human rights issues of foreign workers coming to Korea, but almost no measures were taken at the governmental level. From the perspective of policy on women, issues were raised over the acquisition of Korean nationality of foreign men married to Korean women and their children and the human rights of foreign women engaged in entertainment business with art and entertainment visas, but these issues were not adopted as major policy agenda. In the mid-2000s, the government carried out projects centering on marriage immigrant women but its policy lacked a clear direction and systematic character. In 2006, however, the government began to proclaim a multicultural society at the public policy level, beginning with a department-wide master plan named "Support Plan for Social Cohesion of Marriage Immigrant Women & Families, Multiracial and Migrant Residents." In the late 2000s, multicultural policy began to make a remarkable progress with the establishment of a department dedicated to multicultural families (Mar. 2008), enactment of the Multicultural Family Support Act (Mar. 2008) and its enforcement (Sep. 2008).

The current policy on multicultural society has a clear tendency of specifying policy tasks into particular groups for implementation. Also, the government includes only marriage immigrants and their children, that is, just part of multicultural family members, in targets for social integration, and determines the targets of positive social cohesion on the premise of family relations with Koreans. In this regard, it seems the multicultural society policy at the social integration level is not much different from the multicultural family support policy. This study is the last-year assignment of the collaborative research which has been conducted since 2007. The purpose of the study is to examine the directions of already-implemented policies on multicultural society and to develop future policy tasks. Through this, the study aims to raise the qualitative level of the policy, facilitate smooth transition of Korea to a multicultural society, and ultimately contribute to realizing a vibrant and integrated multicultural society.

In Korean society which has maintained the myth of ethnically homogeneous nation, the "formation" itself of a policy related to multicultural society is very significant. However, the policy is found to have many problems: First, while focusing on "multicultural families" on the premise of family relations with Koreans, it excluded the other diverse migrant groups from policy targets. Second, it paid very limited attention to social integration of migrant workers, who comprise the largest portion of migrant groups, and failed to address the issue as a policy task. Third, it excluded a recently increasing group of foreign students from targets of social integration. Although issues emerged over discrimination and human rights violation of students from abroad as a minority group, no tangible policy was formulated to address the issues. Fourth, support-centered policy restricted opportunities of marriage immigrants to confirm their potential to exhibit their abilities as members of Korean society and contribute to its social development. Fifth, the policy is criticized in that it identified the second-generation immigrants as a group lacking in the ability of linguistic development or setting them as a separate group of receiving extra benefits. Also, measures need to be taken to ensure the rights to learn not only for their children who grew in Korea but also for children with foreign nationalities from couples of international marriage or naturalized residents who come to Korea through chain migration. Six, the policy did not go beyond a passive approach, on the whole, to promote Koreans' understanding of multiculture, including changing the system of the mainstream society and raising the awareness and attitude of its members.

This study makes the following suggestions for resolving those issues: First, the policy needs to make a departure from existing policies on foreigners or multicultural family support policy which partially deal with a multicultural society. It then should shift toward a new paradigm of policy on multicultural society which comprehends prevention of problems and management of diversity related to supports for migrant residents and increase in the migrants. Second, it should redefine policy targets by dividing migrants into permanent residents, prospective permanent residents, and non-permanent long-term sojourners based not on their qualifications of sojourn but on their possibile settlement or residence in Korean society. Third, rather than setting only marriage immigrants and their children as targets of social cohesion, the policy should promote social cohesion in a positive manner with a goal to help people of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds actively engage themselves as main players in each social sector. Fourth, it should take strengthened measures for social cohesion of the second-generation immigrants, including ensuring their rights to learn. Fifth, it should help create a social environment suited for a multicultural society by establishing laws on prevention of discrimination on the ground of ethnic and cultural differences. Six, it should provide sufficient services, including Korean language training, interpreting and translation, and information on daily life, to guarantee basic human rights of migrants in general and to help them make basic livelihoods as residents of Korean society regardless of their qualifications of sojourn. Seven, it should reinforce measures for human rights of all migrants and their children's rights to learn. Eight, it should vitalize local policies through development of local governance, including participation of migrant residents. Nine, it should prepare a mechanism for the general public to participate in the multicultural society policy so that ordinary citizens (domestic residents) can participate in the local community.