• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.295-318
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• 2009

This paper explores micro-contexts of transnational migration and decision-making process of foreign migrants in Korea with four types, that is, married immigrants, immigrant workers, professional immigrants, and foreign students, analyzing dates of questionaries and interviews. Some findings can be summarized as follows. First, married immigrants and immigrant workers show relative lower level of micro-environments than professional immigrants and foreign students. Secondly, immigrants workers fill closest in geographical contiguity among immigrants' types, while married immigrants recognize more different in cultural comparison than the former. Both immigrants workers and foreign students think living environments of Korea better than other types, but immigrants workers consider relatively higher the level of technology, while foreign students evaluate lower that of education in Korea than other types. Thirdly, married immigrants give a relatively low score to the easiness of immigration, while both immigrant workers and professional immigrants give a high score to the job environment of Korea. Finally, all types of immigrants show a high portion in a self-decision making for international migration, while professional immigrants have much more experiences on visiting other countries than other types, and both married immigrants and foreign students seem to have utilized their networks with family members who live abroad.