Peer-reviewed article
Children's bullying victimization and maternal suicidal ideation among multicultural families in South Korea: Heterogeneity by family socioeconomic status.
Hyewon Son, Eunhye Ahn, Jinho Kim ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how children's bullying victimization in South Korea affects their immigrant mothers' mental health, specifically suicidal ideation. Using data from 1,466 multicultural families over nine years, researchers found that when children experience bullying, their mothers are more likely to have suicidal thoughts. This effect was stronger in families with lower education and income levels. The research suggests that interventions addressing bullying need to consider the wider family impact, especially on vulnerable mothers.
Key points
- Children's bullying victimization is associated with increased suicidal ideation among immigrant mothers (b = 0.012, p < 0.05)
- The relationship between children's bullying and maternal suicidal ideation was stronger for mothers with low education levels
- The relationship was stronger for families with low household income
- No moderating effect was found for maternal occupational status
- Study controlled for unobserved individual-level heterogeneity using fixed effects models over nine years of data
Limitations
The study focuses only on multicultural families in South Korea, so findings may not generalise to other countries or non-multicultural families. The research is observational and cannot establish causation, only association, despite the use of fixed effects models.
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.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- No specific intervention was tested; this is an observational study examining the association between children's bullying victimization and maternal suicidal ideation
- Population
- 1,466 children and immigrant mothers from multicultural families in South Korea
Key finding
Children's bullying victimization associated with increased maternal suicidal ideation (b = 0.012, p < 0.05)