What made Korean nurses move to West Germany during 1960~1970
Since the end of 1950s, about 10,000 young Korean nurses went to West Germany. As many of them ended up remaining in Germany, the issue of those nurses is ongoing. At the same time, tho ...
What made Korean nurses move to West Germany during 1960~1970
Since the end of 1950s, about 10,000 young Korean nurses went to West Germany. As many of them ended up remaining in Germany, the issue of those nurses is ongoing. At the same time, those Korean nurses are part of German and Korean histories. There have been many explanations concerning the motives for them to move to Germany but I believe the issue should become the study object for historians.
At first, in most cases, religious institutions drove the movement but later governments of West Germany and Korea led it as a national project. Various subjective reasons might have played their role. Followings are objective situations at that time.
First, Korea which suffered from division, civil war after it was barely released from the Japanese colonial rule, desperately needed to secure foreign currency and to resolve overpopulation and unemployment issue in order to become industrial nation. This was an absolute cause for the Korean government, even sacrificing medical situation in Korea.
Second, at that time, West Germany needed to secure social capital, employees and social service providers. However, it could not get nurses from neighboring countries despite its working permit policy for foreigners.
Against this backdrop, Korean nurses naturally met the demands of Germany. However, the problem was it was regarded as historic, social and religious service or good deed as well as low-cost labors. That is because many religious institutions send those Korean nurses under the cause of mission, assistance, employment and education opportunity.
Besides, relationship of economic assistance among the US, West Germany and Korea played an important role.
"Working in a foreign country as a nurse" was regarded as a wonderful opportunity for many Korean women to be free from poverty and unconditional sacrifice for their family. Thus, hard experiences in Germany are overlapped with freedom in many ways and it creates its own historic images to women who went to Germany many years ago. These images are not necessarily same with cause that we found in objective histories. However, all of these should be regarded as history.