Amendment to the Naturalization Examination and Its Social Impact on International Marriage Immigrants in South Korea

Abstract

This article provides a brief description of a change in the 2009 naturalization law of international marriage immigrants in South Korea (hereafter Korea). Compared with the previous naturalization law, which automatically granted citizenship eligibility after 2 years of marriage and residence in Korea, the 2009 amendment requires all international marriage immigrants either to take the naturalization test or to attend up to 650 hours of a society integration education program including both Korean language and culture education. The Ministry of Justice, Republic of Korea (hereafter Ministry of Justice), claimed that the former system failed in its efforts to promote Korean language learning and under standing of Korean culture and society and hopes that the new mandatory system provides an opportunity for marriage immigrants to better adjust to Korean society. However, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and marriage immigrant experts argue that the new system will put marriage immigrants in a far more difficult position in their attempts to obtain legal status in Korea by not taking into account the financial and familial situations of marriage immigrants (e.g., Kim, 2009). This article analyzes these arguments with special attention to the rationale of the amendment and to the covert and overt exclusionism in relation to the test. Based on