Life Satisfaction and Consumer Satisfaction of Resident Foreigners in Korea

Original Article

Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association 2008;46(10):133-146.

국내거주외국인의 생활만족도와 소비생활만족도에 관한 연구

김현주, 나종연

서울대학교 소비자학과

Life Satisfaction and Consumer Satisfaction of Resident Foreigners in Korea

Jong-Youn Rha, Kim, Hyun-Joo

Department of Consumer Science, Seoul National University

ABSTRACT

This study investgates the factors influencing the levels of consumer satisfaction and life satisfaction of resident foreigners in Korea. The data were collected through a structured self-administered survey and 545 foreigners who lived in Korea for more than 3 months, with age over 20 participated as respondents. A research framework was formulated based on the resource constraint hypothesis and the study investigated the impact of information resource(human, media and internet information source) and consumer resource(monthly income, language ability and consumer proficiency) on the levels of consumer satisfaction and life satisfaction. The results from data analysis can be summarized as follows; First, analysis of consumer problems of resident foreigners in Korea indicated that resident foreigners recognize a burden for residence cost, food expense and education fee. Most of resident foreigners in Korea are found to use small local shops most often indicating they may experience adverse market environment due to resource constraint such as language or psychological barrier, and most of the respondents answered that the most often used payment method was cash. Furthermore, resident foreigners in Korea responded that lack of language service, lack of information provision, inability to use certain goods and services are the common cause of consumer dissatisfaction, as well as price and quality problems. Second, the level of consumer satisfaction (2.96 in 4.0) is higher than the level of life satisfaction (2.63 in 4.0). Third, the level of life satisfaction is significantly influenced by Korean language ability and the level of consumer satisfaction. The level of consumer satisfaction is by the media information source usage and consumer claim experience. Fourth, the level of consumer satisfaction is found to be the variable with the strongest causal relationship with the level of life satisfaction.

Keywords: 국내거주외국인, resident foreigners in Korea, 소비생활만족도, Level of consumer satisfaction, 생활만족도, Level of Life satisfaction