This chapter explains the background of the current study. It also presents the research purposes and questions as well as the limitations and delimitations of the study. The last part of this chapter contains the definitions of some key terms used by the researcher.
Background of the Research
The most recent two decades have seen a huge increment in the scale and unpredictability of worldwide movement in Asia (Hugo, 2003). It is fact that the development of the migration flows shares the feature of gender imbalance, women outnumber men. Research into this trend has focused emphatically on that connected with labor migration. (Lim & Oishi, 1996). Besides the purpose of work movement, there are a significant number of women migrating to different countries through marriage. Generally, this movement involves commercial transactions in which intermediaries are an essential part (Wang & Chang, 2002) and in that the majority are between men of wealthier countries marrying women from economically less developed countries. However, this trend has gotten fairly less consideration from researchers.
Taiwan now has large immigrant groups in the workforce and the number of immigrant women through commercially arranged marriage accounted for more than 100,000. The report of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2014 noted that a higher share of marriage immigration compared to other forms of migration is related to slower labor market integration in all countries. In recent decades, Taiwan has received immigrants through transnational marriage to an extent that has had a considerable impact on society.
The number of immigrants increases means that the responsibility of government, which helps them to integrate into the new society also grows. That process of integration of immigrants is not only taking place at the level of the individual immigrant, whose integration is then measured in terms of housing, employment, education, and social and cultural adaptation to the new society. It is the fact that employment is one of the most important stages which allow immigrants to integrate as well as not to be the burden to the society. As a result, the employment of the immigrant women after the marriage has been an issue of concern.
Segendorf and Teljusto (2011) mentioned three reasons that give immigrants difficulties in relation to the labor market: devaluation of human capital (specific cultural knowledge, languages), thresholds of the market (e.g. high wages for simple jobs, discrimination), and lack of network. The success in achieving a place in the working life of the receiving country, thus
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depends on the demands of the market in relation to the resources of the individual. For work performance and work training, individual variations in general mental ability, a construct introduced by Spearman (1904), has been shown to have the strongest influence (Schmidt &
Hunter, 2004). The applicability, range, and adaptability of cognitive functions in new surroundings thus play an important part in the transfer of vocational skills.
In Taiwan, substantial resources have been invested in the vocational training of cross-border marriage immigrant women as a solution to their needs for employment. Vocational training measures for unemployed immigrant women with insufficient work skills are planned and implemented using public and private resources. The Workforce Development Agency has adopted three approaches to implementing these training measures, including organizing training courses itself, commissioning other training institutions, and providing allowances and subsidies. These training measures enhance the practical skills of immigrant women and aid them in finding employment and having a stable life.
This research will focus on one of the growing streams of marriage migration in Asia - women from Vietnam moving to marry Taiwanese men. Vietnamese immigrant women, who integrate the desire of getting a better life into their expectations when moving to Taiwan and bring the culture of their original country into their experiences as adult learners when participating the vocational training in Taiwan, are potentially disadvantaged in the host country due to their complicated status. Understanding what immigrant women expect in the vocational training and investigating how they experienced their training courses will be the focus of this study. Therefore, this study sought to investigate the expectations and experiences of Vietnamese immigrant women toward the vocational training. Some suggestions for improving the vocational training would be discussed, with a focus on providing professionals information to utilize in the implementation of new support strategies for designing training courses to immigrant women.
Problem Statement
Recently, the trend of women in developing countries wants to move abroad to more economically developed countries to pursue a better life is increasing, while the trend of socioeconomically disadvantaged men in wealthier Asian countries often seeks spouses overseas is also growing. Taiwan is one of the countries where these trends are rapidly developing. The proportion of transnational marriages that Vietnamese women married to Taiwanese men before 2016 is always in top places 5 among countries in Asia. According to
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the report from Ministry of the Interior, there are more than 103,000 Vietnamese women immigrant to Taiwan through marriage and this number is forecasted to continue to increase in the next years.
Most Vietnamese immigrant women were born in poor families and with the economic transactions at the time of marriage and remittances from the brides after marriage, cross-border marriages indeed improve the economic situation of the brides’ natal families and communities in Vietnam considerably. As a result, young women (and their families) aspire to find a foreign husband. However, most “foreign husband” who demand the transnational marriage are farmers and low-skilled manufacturing workers. Therefore, pursuing employment in the host country has become the most urgent need of female immigrants in order to support the economy of both natal place and immediate families (Wu, 2013). Nevertheless, due to the lack of marketable skills and be suffered the racism and sexism in the host countries, immigrant women are a disadvantaged group when seeking jobs. Therefore, the vocational training program offered by Taiwanese government is a good solution to help immigrant women, especially Vietnamese women to deal this problem. It also will be beneficial for their empowerment, improvement economic independence and their upward social mobility.
Although there is sustainable resource have been invested on immigrant women, just a little number of late reviews have investigated the vocational training among immigrant women.
The basic targets of these studies just were demonstrating the barriers of immigrant women when attending training programs include deficiencies in host-country such as language skills, financial constraints, and family responsibilities (Shan, 2009; Stephens & Bertone, 1995;
Wong, Duff & Early, 2009). It is undeniable that the current reviews have given imperative findings, they have concentrated on the decontextualized parts of immigrant women’s training (such as the number of immigrant women participating in training and their incomes after training). However, there is an essential part of their training outcome, which is contextualized learning experiences. Moreover, these existing studies have conducted by researchers in America and Europe, so the research subjects were limited to the immigrant women living there (Palriwala & Uberoi, 2008). The generally constrained national mediations of vocational training and employment among immigrant women in the majority of the Asian host nations might be one of the reasons why studies on this issue in Asian countries were limited. Besides, in these Asian nations, women who move through marriage regularly get to be housewives instead of labor market members (Tang & Wang, 2011).
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Despite the issue of vocational training among Asian women who migrate to other Asian countries has been investigated by some researchers, these just focused on the cultural structural perspective or culturally responsive approach to research immigrant women’s learning experience on vocational training. According to a review of the author, only limited number of recently published studies have talked this topic in Taiwan, especially measuring the effectiveness of the vocational training.
The number of Vietnamese immigrant women in Taiwan is growing strongly, it means that their demand of participating the vocational training also is increasing significantly.
Therefore, it is necessary to explore the expectations and experiences of immigrant women as learners in vocational training to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of their lives in their host countries. Taking this into consideration, this study was trying to understand the immigrant women’s expectations and experiences and the impacts on their lives after completing the vocational training.
The Significance of the Research
The general purpose of this study is to investigate the training expectations and training experiences of Vietnamese immigrant women for vocational training in Taiwan. Therefore, after completion of this study, the research would have permitted on one hand to better understand the vocational training for immigrant women in Taiwan. On the other hand, the findings of research would be a valuable basis for improving the immigrant women training conditions, the study contributed to helping to change the training which may more appropriate with immigrant females’ desire. Thanks to this, they will receive more benefits during the time of their participation as well as the better outcomes after finishing the training courses.
In addition to that, this research may encourage the government to undertake more concerns for Vietnamese immigrant women, on the other hand, effective design of the vocational training course in a favor of Vietnamese women will boost their capacity so that they can contribute to the host country economic development.
On other major contributions to this study concerns the literature, the findings of this research will add literature to research into the immigrant women through transnational marriage in Asia as well as the vocational training designed for them.
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Research Purposes
The research focuses on the Vietnamese immigrant women participating the vocational training for immigrant organized by Taiwan government. The specific objectives of this research are:
To identify the expectations of Vietnamese immigrant women when participating the vocational training.
To explore the experiences of Vietnamese immigrant women when participating the vocational training.
To find out the impact of the vocational training on Vietnamese immigrant women.
To propose suggestions and recommendation for stakeholders to the vocational training
Research Questions
In order to obtain the purposes of the research, the author designed the following questions:
1. What are Vietnamese immigrant women’s expectations for the vocational training?
2. What are immigrant women’s experiences during the vocational training?
3. What are the impacts of the vocational training on Vietnamese immigrant women?
4. What are the suggestions and recommendations for stakeholders to the vocational training?
Definition of Terms Immigrant Women
There are many ways to define “immigrant women”, but in this study, the research subjects are women immigrate into the host country through marriage or can be called “foreign brides”. Therefore, in this study, “immigrant women” refers to are those women whose immigration was based on marriage to men who live in a relatively wealthier country (Chen, 2011).
Vocational Training
Vocational training is generally defined as the part of vocational education that provides the specialized professional knowledge and skills, which attribute professional adequacy to the trainee and are the focus of every vocational training program. Vocational training can be seen as an activity or a set of activities designed in order to transmit theoretical knowledge and also professional skills that are required for certain types of jobs (Kotsikis, 2007).
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Training Needs
Training needs Training needs by itself is a shortfall between the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of the employees, what is required by the job, or the demands of the organizational change (Itika, 2011). In the case of this study, training needs are the difference between what Vietnamese immigrant women can do and what the Taiwan labor market demand.
Training Expectations
It is difficult to define “Training Expectations” because, in the different situations, it has different definitions. In this study, the researcher refers training expectation is what trainees desire the training can bring to them.
Training Experiences
Training experience involves any activities in which training take places such as course, program, interaction, discussion meeting. It happens in both traditional scholarly settings (schools, classrooms) and nontraditional settings (outside of school areas, outdoor environment), or whether it includes conventional instructive collaborations (gaining from instructors and teachers or classmates and colleagues) (Mezirow, 1991).
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