Life stress, distress symptoms, and social supports among Korean immigrants who own small retail businesses

Abstract

The purpose of this descriptive correlational survey was to describe the relationship between life stress, distress symptoms, social support among Korean immigrant businessmen. Korean small businessmen (N = 100) completed a questionnaire developed by the researcher consisting of measures of life stress, distress symptoms, and social support. Subjects were recruited from customers of a Korean owned wholesale store. The typical profile of the sample was a middle-aged married-man, with some college education, Christian, in this country about 8 years, and who worked 6 or 7 days a week and put in 12 or 13 hours a day. The subject's family helped in his store and his clientele were mostly African-Americans. The findings suggest that Korean businessmen in the United States experience low level of life stress and distress symptoms during their adjustment in the host country. Stepwise multiple regression and ANCOVA were used to answer the research questions relating to life stress, distress, and social support. Stepwise regression yield distress symptoms, English fluency, and weekly working hours as the best predictor variables for life stress. This set of predictor variables significantly predicted 41% of variance in life stress. With distress symptoms as the criterion variable, 28% of the variance in distress was explained by life stress and education. ANCOVA showed no support for either the direct or buffering models of social support among Korean immigrant businessmen. Content analysis of open-ended questions provided added support for these findings. When the Pearson Product-Moment correlation method was used for additional analyses, variables of education, length of residence in US, life satisfaction, self-evaluation of health, and social support were significantly associated with variables of life stress and distress symptoms.