NCJ Number
186396
Journal
Journal of Family Violence Volume: 15 Issue: 4 Dated: December 2000 Pages: 331-345
Editor(s)
Vincent B. Van Hasselt,
Michel Hersen
Date Published
2000
Length
15 pages
Annotation
In exploring the incidence of spouse abuse in Korean-American families and interrelations between conjugal violence, marital power structure, stress, and socioeconomic and cultural factors, this study found rates of conjugal violence in these families were higher than those for other Asian-American families.
Abstract
Data were collected from 256 families selected at random and interviewed by telephone in Chicago and New York City. The total sample included 46 husband-to-wife violence cases and 210 non-violent cases. Data were analyzed based on measures of marital power, conjugal violence, and stress. Findings showed nearly 19 percent of Korean-American couples experienced at least one incident of relatively minor physical assault during the year, and 6.3 percent were victims of serious assault. In male-dominant couples, the rate of severe violence or wife beating was four times higher than that for egalitarian couples. Husbands who experienced higher levels of stress had a greater rate of assaulting their wives. Wives in egalitarian and female-dominant couples experienced a lower amount of stress and shared more decision-making power than those in male-dominant couples. The longer the couples had been in the United States and the more American education they had received, the more egalitarian and female-dominant marital relations they tended to have. The residual influence of the traditional culture in which study participants lived prior to immigration appeared a factor explaining why men were more abusive than women. Cultural differences associated with conjugal violence in Korean-American families and service needs are discussed. 34 references and 6 tables