Xenophobia dies hard in Korea, survey shows

By Park Si-soo

Nearly 61 percent of South Koreans do not consider foreign workers members of Korean society, a survey showed on Wednesday, reflecting the deep-rooted xenophobia that remains strong despite all the campaigns to promote multiculturalism.

The figure was 3.6 percentage points higher than in 2013, the state-funded Overseas Koreans Foundation that conducted the surveys said.

The latest survey quizzed 820 adult Koreans in seven major cities from July 31 to Aug. 27. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.46 percent at a 95 percent level of confidence.

In the survey, foreign workers are those who entered the country on the Employment Permit System (EPS), under which they can work at labor-intensive industries for up to three years, according to the foundation.

Nearly 57 percent of those surveyed said they “don’t care” about foreign workers becoming long-term sojourners by marriage or extending work visas, while 13.4 percent expressed “opposition” to the switch. For 29.3 percent, it depended on “states of origin.”

Asked about international marriage, 65.7 percent were negative. In a question to those positive to interracial tie-ups, they picked North America as the most preferred region of origin of their partner, followed by Europe, Japan, China and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Regarding ethnic Koreans from China, the biggest number of foreign workers here, 45.9 percent of those surveyed replied they “don’t care,” 21.7 percent said the workers were “positive in resolving a chronic workforce shortage in small- and medium-sized companies,” 20.2 percent were “negative of their switch to long-term sojourners” while 12.2 percent were “negative because they could steal jobs from Koreans.”