Half of foreign spouses identify as liberal

About half of foreign spouses here consider themselves progressive and are willing to participate in political activities such as voting, a study showed Tuesday.

For her master’s degree at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Ariun Shukertei surveyed 670 foreign-born people who have either Korean nationality or permanent residency and are eligible to vote. All of them came to Korea through marriage and reside in Gyeonggi province.

In the survey, 52.2 percent of the respondents labeled themselves as progressive, followed by 31.3 percent for neutral and 16.4 percent conservative. Vietnamese took the lion’s share among the self-claimed progressives with 76.4 percent, while Japanese marked the lowest with 26.3 percent.

About 11.5 percent have experience of enrolling in a political party, while 20 percent have been members of civic groups. About 32 percent believed that voting is an effective expression of one’s ideas with 30-somethings showing the most passion.

The higher educated respondents were, the more they believed in the power of voting.

However, not many have actually yet voted. Only 17.1 percent of Southeast Asia-natives such as Filipinos, Thai, Vietnamese and Cambodians had voted. The figure showed an increase among those from Northeast Asian countries such as China, Japan, Mongolia and Russia, marking 26.2 percent.

Despite this, 73.1 percent said they would use their vote in the next election. Those who responded negatively said they were not interested or were uninformed about the political landscape and voting system in Korea.

Many respondents were eager to participate in politics directly: 42.4 percent said they should be allowed the option to run for election. About 29.9 percent they should be guaranteed equal treatment to native Koreans in every way and that politics was no exception.

“These immigrants show a relatively positive attitude toward political participation in Korea although the present level of political interest is very low,” Ariun said.

She pointed out that 70.5 percent of the respondents felt politicians and administrators were not interested in foreigners, which caused the immigrant spouses to be less drawn to social and political issues.

“It is necessary for the government to render them institutionalized chances for political participation and channels for political communication with native Koreans,” she added.

Ariun, who is an immigrant spouse herself, said her thoughts were based on her 10-year observation of fellow immigrant spouses during election periods. “It was quite interesting that each person had a different point of view and opinion about certain politicians and were as enthusiastic and curious about the election result as any other Koreans,” she said.

Ariun said it was time more immigrants stepped up to make progress in the real world. In the 2010 June local election, a Mongolian native, Lee Ra, was elected a member of the Gyeonggi Provincial Council.

“Now they are voters, but more will become candidates and elected,” Ariun said.

By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)