The Marriage Migrants in Japan, USA and Britain

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It is the interplay of gender and race discrimination that leads to domestic and social violence, making married lives unsustainable and insecure. This is why marriage migrants constitute a special category.

Thirdly, marriage migrants also have a special role in building a multicultural Asian community. Unfortunately, their socio-economic and cultural insecurity makes it difficult for them to act as cultural mediators. Such difficulties need to be eliminated by the cooperation between the states and citizens in both their countries of origin and of destination.

Consequently, marriage migration possesses the following traits, which are women-dominance, economic–orientation, upward-mobilization, and diversified- operation.

3.1.2 The Marriage Migrants in Japan, USA and Britain

The prevailing image of marriage migration has been influenced by stories of marriage of convenience, of forced marriage, trafficking and of so-called mail-order brides. The above mentioned phenomena exit in the past and the present societies around the world. However, of its own specific background, the more developed countries in terms of marriage migration are generally regarded as magnets attracting women migration out of diverse reasons, namely for the better life.

Japan is one of the model countries with growing marriage migrants in the past few decades. As Piper（2003）noted that the global trend of increasing numbers of international couples can also be witnessed in Japan where Southeast and Northeast Asian women dominate numerically.

Kokusai kekkon (international marriages) between Japanese men and non-Japanese women have become increasingly common since the 1980s in Japan, showing a 550 per cent increase in number during the last two decades. The vast

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majority of these marriages have been with women from other Asian countries, notably China, the Philippines, and South Korea. The increase in such marriages has coincided with the economic, political, and cultural integration of the Asian region that has accelerated the migration of people, temporary or permanent, to and from Japan (Nakamatsu, 2005).

The number of international marriage in Japan is gradually growing from 1970 to 1990 and increasing dramatically since then. Especially, the number of international marriage between Japanese husband and foreign spouses till 2000 with near 40%

growth than 1990 is apparent. Since then, the increase shows steadily in the successive years (Table 3-1).

From the table indicated, the sourcing countries of international marriage in Japan are majorly from the nations in northeast and southeast Asia. From 1970s to 1990s, Korea toped on the list; however from 1995 on, China was at the leading place in terms of the original country of international marriage with Japanese. It testified the

“Propinquity Theory”²⁵ while selecting marriage partner nearly from the adjacent and neighboring countries (Hung, 2005). Another apparent phenomenon among the increasing international marriage is that foreign brides are much more than the foreign husbands. Interestingly, USA is listed on the third place followed Korea and China as the major sourcing countries of foreign husbands in Japan.

As Nakamatsu (2005) indicated in the late 1980s “International Marriage through Introduction Agencies, IMIA” attracted enormous media interest in Japan. The topic became a torendo, or a trend, following the involvement of rural local government in arranging international marriages for their male residents in response to the problem of inability to attract Japanese brides to farm households. Thus, media interest was enormous, focusing on rural farming families and the experiences of the brides from

25 Propinquity theory here refers to no matter he/she has the tendency to search his/her partner who is adjacent to him/her geographically.

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Table 3-1: Number of International Marriage by Nationality in Japan

Year 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2003 2004 2005 2006

Total of

4,386 7,738 20,026 20,787 28,326 27,881 30,907 33,116 35,993

Nationality of Wife

2,875 4,443 5,600 6,940 7,937 8,158 8,604 8,365 8,708

Nationality of Husband

Note: Until year 1992, the Philippines, Thailand, U.K. Brazil, and Peru were included in other countries in the statistics.

Source: Ministry of Health (2006), Statistics of International Marriage, http://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei /saikin/hw/jinkou/suii06/marr2.html.

other parts of Asia who were referred to by a racialized term, Ajia no hanayome (Asian brides). “Asian brides,” the majority of whom were Filipinas, were

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consistently portrayed as economic victims of their homelands or as foreign workers disguised as brides. Moreover, this derogatory picture of female foreigners disallows the view of these women as “active female migrants”, positively contributing to Japanese society by providing reproductive and productive work. In addition, these women are not short-term labor migrants, but long-term settlers.

Piper（2003） pointed out that Japan is also host to an increasing number of international couples —– a trend which has largely coincided with accelerated labor migration flows of Southeast and East Asian women. Numerically, Southeast and Northeast Asian women are the most common spouses in international couples, with Filipinas forming the largest settling immigrant group in Japan. Thus, these

‘newcomer’ foreign spouses have added to the various types of inter-ethnic relationships which are part of Japan’s significant (and historically established) minority populations.

As the research of Tsuda (2001) showed that for many decades, Japan was the only advanced industrial country in the world that did not rely on unskilled foreign labour. Japan, a nation insisting on ethnic homogeneity and refusal to accept unskilled foreign workers, opted to its labor requirements by mechanizing and rationalizing production and making greater use of untapped sources of labor (female and elderly workers).

Transnational marriages account for a significant proportion of family-based immigration to North America. An increasing number of immigrant men are choosing to marry women from their countries of origin, and an increasing number of nonimmigrant men are choosing to marry women from other countries. This article describes three interrelated theoretical frameworks that can inform further research, practice, and policy development related to female marriage migrants. The frameworks draw on cross-cultural models of gender-based violence, seminal work on

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the psychology of women, and international human rights research (Merali, 2008).

As many envision Europe as a provider of unlimited opportunities and endless riches and wealth, they are often disappointed to find this image far from the truth upon arrival. Not surprisingly, European as well as American studies have documented how many irregular migrants do not realize their aspirations. However, some irregular migrants do achieve success. One should therefore take care not to regard them mere ‘‘victims’’. Although irregular migrants do obviously experience limitations, a ‘‘victim perspective’’ can obstruct our understanding of the ways they manage to improve their situation. The extent to which they manage to realize their aspirations is closely connected to the extent to which they are able to enforce and mobilize resources like social, cultural, or economic capital. Numerous studies have explored the significance of different forms of capital for irregular migrants. Their findings are worthwhile yet ambiguous (Van Meeteren et al., 2009).

The National Statistics of the Britain stated that the population will increase from present 61 million to 71 million and 600 thousand owing to the gradually growth of immigrants in 2033; calculated correctly, which probably the speediest population growth in the recent ten decades. The predicted statistic report showed that two thirds of the population increase is resulted from the influx of immigrants to Britain directly or indirectly till the year of 2033. The major sources of immigrants in Britain are asylum seekers, relatives of migrants for family union, labor migrants and marriage migrants.

With regard to source of spouse, the marriage migrants in Britain being different from Taiwan’s (brokered marriages), are unique, that is international arranged marriages with spouses from where they come. International arranged marriages are a major factor in the formation of ghettoes in Britain. Even in the second generation, a high proportion of immigrants from certain countries enter arranged marriages with

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spouses from their county of origin. This sets back integration by a generation.

It is now essential that immigration policy should discourage international arranged marriage which has become a means of immigration. The present regulations should be tightened and a “family connection test” should be introduced, similar to that in force in Denmark. Where a UK resident wishes to marry a spouse from the country in which he or she (or either parent) was born, entry clearance to Britain should not be granted until both parties have reached the age of 24.

Thus, USA, UK and Japan have specific and unique patterns and sources of marriage migrants respectively. Generally speaking, marriage migration is a common trend in the global migration.