Children's bullying victimization and maternal suicidal ideation among multicultural families in South Korea: Heterogeneity by family socioeconomic status

Abstract

Rationale: Children from multicultural families in Korea are vulnerable to bullying victimization. Despite growing evidence on the mental health consequences of bullying victimization for victims, little is known about the spillover effects on their immigrant mothers.

Objective: This study examined the association between children's bullying victimization and their immigrant mothers' suicidal ideation. The potential moderating role of family socioeconomic status was also investigated.

Methods: Using nine waves of the Multicultural Adolescents Panel Study spanning from 2011 to 2019 (N = 1466), this study estimated individual fixed effects models to control for unobserved individual-level heterogeneity. Interaction models were used to investigate potential heterogeneity by family socioeconomic status, including maternal education, household income, and maternal occupational status.

Results: Fixed effects estimates revealed that children's bullying victimization is associated with an increased likelihood of suicidal ideation among marriage migrant mothers (b = 0.012, p < 0.05), even after controlling for unobserved time-invariant confounders as well as a set of time-varying covariates. Family socioeconomic status moderated this association. The association between children's bullying victimization and immigrant mothers' suicidal ideation was stronger for those with low levels of education and household income. No such moderating effects were observed for maternal occupation.

Conclusions: The findings of this study suggest that efforts to address the mental health consequences of bullying victimization among multicultural family children should extend beyond the victim to their immigrant mothers. When developing interventions to reduce suicidal ideation among immigrant mothers whose children have been victimized, policymakers may wish to consider the moderating role of family socioeconomic status.

Keywords: Bullying victimization; Fixed effects; Marriage migrant women; Multicultural family; Socioeconomic status; Suicidal ideation.