Acculturative stress as a mental health predictor of North Korean refugees in South Korea

South Korea is an emerging immigration destination where over half of the country’s immigrant population are ethnic return migrants. Thus far, little attention has been given to the effect of acculturation on the mental health of coethnic migrants in non-traditional immigration states such as South Korea. Using 2010 survey data on 1,200 North Korean refugees, this study examines the effect of preserving cultural norms and practices from the home country on the mental health of North Koreans in the South. Based on an acculturation typology, we categorize respondents into four groups based on their attitudes toward home and host cultures. Given South Korea’s homogenous context, our cluster analyses extracted two acculturation types—the integrated and the assimilated groups. The finding that integrated or bicultural individuals had better mental health status than assimilated individuals underscores the crucial role of the culture of origin in attenuating acculturative distress for coethnic migrants in South Korea.