The Motives and the Incentives for Marriage Migration

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sectors such as construction and manufacturing, the impact on the wages and employment of the local labor force is minimal.

However, the availability of marriage migrant workers at low wages has the unintended consequence of retarding the adoption of new technologies and creating incentives for labor-intensive industries to expand the admission of foreign workers.

Further research-based information is needed to clarify the various impacts of women marriage migration on host countries. It could then be used to serve as the basis for more realistic policies.

2.3.8 The Motives and the Incentives for Marriage Migration

International migration has long been an emphasis of researchers in economy, sociology, human development and additional areas. The previous literatures on international marriage migration referred this group as represented by mail-order brides or picture-brides, and mainly in association with sex industry as victims of male-dominated businesses gender-imbalanced recognition, the recent researchers influenced by feminist, globally-developed perspectives have attempted to stress on women’s agency and sources of women’s empowerment.

Some have examined various aspects that affect women’s decision to find their spouse in another country, such as economic and geographic hypergamy —– to find a husband who can support her and her family back home —– and a desire to realize marital subjectivities, and others have paid attention to women’s experiences in their new family, community and country. However, more and more strict border control along with increasingly discriminative policy, disastrous working environment and criminal-like treatment, all of these are the situations foreign spouse are confronting under present global depression.

Kim (2008) noted that even though international marriage migrants are primarily

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expected to provide reproductive labor, they often engage themselves in productive paid work for a number of reasons and with varying levels of satisfaction both in urban and rural areas they settle in. International marriage migrants might face difficulties resulted from language and cultural differences, but they also make efforts to improve their human and cultural capital and make contributions to their families and communities through various activities.

With regard to the motivation to migrate, there are diverse and multiple explanation to human migration. As a renowned philosopher Aristotle ever said that man is a social animal. If individuals move long distances, leaving their families and communities behind and crossing national, ethnic, or cultural boundaries, then there must be some extraordinary forces compelling them to do this (Hollifield, 2000).

Wars and large-scale disasters, whether natural or man-made, are obvious migration triggers as people flee for their lives. Beyond them, the roots of international migration can be found in the quest to protect oneself and one’s family from sustained physical jeopardy and to escape dramatic declines in economic opportunities that have become chronic (Parademetriou, 2003). Therefore, the motivation behind human migration, whether it is out of inner own will or is forced by outer environment or both, has had long being researchers’ focus.

As Keely (2000) stated that a major difficulty often noted in the migration literature is developing a comprehensive theory that takes account of both voluntary and forced migration. Part of the difficulty is the name used for the phenomena.

Voluntary migration is usually used synonymously with terms like economic migration. This is contrasted to forced or involuntary migration caused by man-made or natural disasters. Man-made disasters include the persecution of racial, ethnic, and religious groups or political dissenters and the flight due to the devastation of war.

The problem is that all migration includes elements of choice and pressure.

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Nowadays, due to prevailing globalization worldwide in economics, culture and politics in the recent few decades, countries in different regions interact much more frequently. Thus, international migration tends to occur simultaneously. The causes for immigration are diversely ranged from economic, educational, cultural and political dimensions such as for business, family reunion or refugee seeking for asylum, etc.

A women’s marriage may seem to be made by her own choice, but actually operates a wider of influence on her decision to travel abroad for marriage: the social realities of both the country of origin and the destination country, the structure of the economy including the matchmaking agencies, and the interaction between the two concerned governments.

Therefore, the study points out the following as the factors contributing to the increase of cross-border marriages, and shed light on (1) the uneven development among countries in the global economy which consequently encouraged the commercialization of women, (2) the country of origin’s patriarchal culture and government that seem indifferent or covertly encourage female migration in order to find a solution to the country’s poverty and unemployment, (3) the same of the destination country that promote such migration as a way to solve its lack of young female population for marriage, and (4) the marriage agencies that benefit from the aforementioned structure problems (Seol, 2005). Definitely, the surging women marriage immigrants flock to Taiwan in the latest decade, the aforementioned factors comply with the phenomena best.

The following statement made by UN Group Meeting of 2008 that remittances made by marriage migrants are one of the most visible outcomes of international marriage migration. They have a profound impact on the quality of life of millions of poor households in developing countries. At the household level, remittances enhance well-being and economic security by providing critical resources for spending on

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immediate subsistence needs such as food and housing as well as on improved health care and education.

Therefore, marrying men of highly-developed nations probably is a channel for marriage migrants to gain money to remit back to their original family so as to support and improve natal family’s life expense.

Remittances also provide income for investment, savings and entrepreneurial activities which, in turn, have stimulating effects on the local and national economies.

In this respect, the contribution of international marriage migration to poverty alleviation and overall socio-economic development has been duly recognized. The volume of remittances to several countries of origin is now so high in absolute terms as well as in relation to other sources of finance that it has become essential to harness its potential to bring about longer-term and broader economic and social development.

Since the remittance from marriage migrants is so influential and practical that more and more women travel for a long distance to a totally unacquainted place to pursue for better opportunity. As a result, remittance for marriage migrants can be taken as both motive and goal simultaneously.