Marriage Migration Research Articles

A Case Study on the Intangible Role Learning of Married Migrant Women who Participated in the Internship Program in the Multicultural Family Center near Metropolitan Area

A Case Study on the Intangible Role Learning of Married Migrant Women who Participated in the Internship Program in the Multicultural Family Center near Metropolitan Area

Frequency of basic public health services utilization by married female migrants in China: associations of social support, discrimination and sociodemographic factors

BackgroundUtilization of basic public health services (BPHS) allows for disease prevention and management and is an essential component for protecting health. Disparities in utilization exist between rural-to-urban migrants and their local counterparts in China. This study sought to determine the frequency of BPHS utilization and whether social support, discrimination, and sociodemographic features were risk factors for low BPHS utilization by Chinese female migrants.MethodsData were derived from a survey of female rural-to-urban migrants at nine work sites in Changsha, China. The association between social support, discrimination, sociodemographic factors and BPHS utilization was obtained using Chi-square and logistic regression analysis.ResultsBetween December 2017 and April 2018, 307 female participants completed the survey. A total of 24.7% reported having had health education, 26.1% had breast and cervical cancer screening, 27.2% had established a health care record, and 40.9% had received basic contraceptive services. Two factors were associated with the reduced likelihood of BPHS utilization: Length of migration and health record establishment (OR = 0.53; 95% CI = 0.31, 0.92) and years of education and basic contraceptive service use (OR = 0.36; 95% CI = 0.20, 0.67). The remaining six factors were associated with an increased likelihood of BPHS utilization: Living circumstances and health record establishment (OR = 2.11; 95% CI = 1.17, 3.80), health education (OR = 2.71; 95% CI = 1.51, 4.87) and cancer screening (OR = 2.38; 95% CI = 1.30, 4.36). Utilization of social support was associated with health record establishment (OR = 1.24; 95% CI = 1.06, 1.44), basic contraceptive service use (OR = 1.21; 95% CI = 1.04, 1.42) and cancer screening (OR = 1.29; 95% CI = 1.10, 1.51). Objective social support was associated with health education utilization (OR = 1.15; 95% CI = 1.04, 1.26), while subjective social support was associated with basic contraceptive service use (OR = 1.11; 95% CI = 1.05, 1.18) and cancer screening (OR = 1.10; 95% CI = 1.02, 1.17). Family location was associated with basic contraceptive service use (OR = 1.96; 95% CI = 1.12, 3.44) and migration time in Changsha was associated with basic contraceptive service use (OR = 2.24; 95% CI = 1.18, 4.27).ConclusionsOverall, there was low utilization rate for four BPHS by Chinese female migrants, and social support appears to be an important factor in this setting. Government, community, and workplace education efforts for enhancing BPHS utilization among female rural-to-urban migrants are recommended.

ОПЫТ БРАЧНОЙ МИГРАЦИИ В ЮЖНУЮ КОРЕЮ В НАЧАЛЕ ХХI ВЕКА (ТЕОРИЯ ОБМЕНА РУССКОЯЗЫЧНЫХ ЖЕНЩИН СНГ)

In the article the author actualizes the problem of female marriage migration to South Korea at the beginning of new millennium. The author proves the interconnection of demographic and socio-cultural characteristics and the level of satisfaction with marriage of migrant women. The paper is based on the statistical data analysis in South Korea from 2000 to 2017 and respondents interviews. The territorial boundaries of the sample of respondents covered Seoul, Busan, Ansan and small satellite cities around Seoul.The paper studies the specifics of the process of international marriage migration of CIS citizens, the socio-demographic analysis of marriage. On the basis of statistical information, as well as in-depth interviews of CIS women who were married to Korean citizens, the features of interethnic marriages, the difficulties of adaptation of Russian-speaking migrants in marriage in South Korea, as well as the level of satisfaction in marriage were found. The actuality to study the behaviour of the CIS citizens in the marriage market of South Korea is urged to reduce the risks of its inefficiency and to determine the direction of further policy of government and public organizations.

A Study on the Association of Divorce and Access to Healthcare Services among Marriage Immigrants

<h3>Research Objectives</h3> To examine whether divorce in married immigrants is independently associated with access to healthcare services. <h3>Design</h3> Cross-sectional study. <h3>Setting</h3> Community setting. <h3>Participants</h3> We analyzed data with 11,778 adults who participated in the 2018 Korea National Multicultural Family Survey. <h3>Interventions</h3> Not applicable. <h3>Main Outcome Measures</h3> Access to healthcare services was evaluated through questions. In the past year, we investigated whether there was any experience in not going to the hospital despite being sick. The dependent variable was the marital status of married immigrants. <h3>Results</h3> Among the total subjective, divorced married immigrants was 5.8% (n = 691). The divorce group consists of 107 (15.5%) males and 584 (84.5%) females, with an average age of 45.2 years (SD = 10.9). The non-divorced group was 1992 males (18.0%) and 9095 (82.0%), and the average age was 39.1 years (SD = 10.5). After propensity score matching, we confirm that the standardized mean difference of all variables was the cut-off range (all p>0.05). Divorced marriage migrants were more difficult to access healthcare services compared to non-divorced marriage immigrants (adjusted odds ratio 1.423, 95% CI [1.075, 1.882]). <h3>Conclusions</h3> Our research finding confirmed that married immigrants made it difficult in accessing healthcare services due to divorce. Divorce was associated with accessing healthcare services. Studying access to healthcare services in minority populations is necessary to improve the quality of public health. Our research suggests that remedial measures are needed to prevent the decline in access to healthcare services caused by the changing role of married migrants. <h3>Author(s) Disclosures</h3> The author declares that (s)he has no relevant or material financial interests that relate to the research described in this paper.

Marriage migration and women's entry into the German labour market

Objective: We analyse the employment patterns of childless first-generation migrants to Germany. In particular, we focus on the behaviour of female "marriage migrants". Marriage migrants are defined as individuals who married after their spouse had moved to Germany.&#x0D; Background: Demographic studies have illustrated that marriage migrants have particularly high childbirth rates upon arrival. There is, however, little empirical evidence on how the childbearing behaviour of migrant women is related to their employment behaviour.&#x0D; Method: We use event history techniques to study women's labour market entry after migration in relation to their childbearing behaviour. We draw on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). The analytical sample is restricted to immigrant women who moved while childless to Germany between 1990 and 2016 (n=981).&#x0D; Results: Compared to other groups, marriage migrants have very low chances of entering the labour market. Only 32 per cent of the migrants in our sample had ever participated in the labour market in the five-year period after their arrival in Germany. A large share of the differences between these migrants and other migrants can be attributed to the socio-demographic composition of these women, and to their tendency to transition to parenthood soon after their arrival.&#x0D; Conclusion: We argue that the low employment rates of female marriage migrants must also be viewed in the context of Germany’s migration policies, which do not provide many routes for female third-country nationals to move to Germany. One of the few available channels is that of marriage migration. We conclude by discussing the social policy implications of these findings at a time when Germany is gradually becoming a dual-earner society.

Beyond political citizenship: marriage migrant women’s voting practices in South Korea

ABSTRACT This study examined the voting practices of Filipina marriage migrants in South Korea. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 66 women, we examine marriage migrant women’s voting through the lens of cultural and performative citizenship. We focus on the gendered and ethnicized integration of marriage migrants into Korean families and in the larger society and how their marginalised social position shapes the women’s voting practices. We identified three voting patterns – dependent, independent, and transitioned – that vary in their degrees of cultural and performative citizenship. We also unpack the characteristics or factors associated with each voting pattern that facilitated marriage migrants’ ability to engage in performative citizenship; that is, to contest their marginalised status and exercise greater autonomy in their candidate choices. Our findings illustrate how viewing immigrant voting through the perspectives of cultural and performative citizenship provides nuanced insights about the meaning and practice of voting beyond its intrinsic function of political representation.

Transnational marriage migration and the negotiation of precarious pathways beyond partial citizenship in Singapore

ABSTRACT While mixed marriage can act as a ‘facilitator of integration’ for migrants, feminist scholars have argued that in Asia, pathways to citizenship for marriage migrants are precariously ridden with negotiations around gender, ethnicity, nationality and class. In this context, the family sphere lies between the individual migrant and the state, and features as a strategic site where citizenship categories take effect on migrant lives on the one hand, and where citizenship claims are mediated, negotiated and contested on the other. Drawing on two ethnographic studies of Southeast Asian women marrying Singaporean men belonging to lower socioeconomic strata, we show how the host nation-state’s hierarchical control interacts with family processes in producing marriage migrants as partial citizens with limited rights to work, residency and citizenship. We also demonstrate how marriage migrants find leverage in negotiating the paradox of being responsible affinal subjects of the family and partial citizens of the nation-state.

결혼이주여성의 초국가적 가족연계: 결혼이주여성 본국 가족과의 동거 현황과 결정요인에 대한 탐색적 연구

이 연구는 한국사회에서 다문화가족의 초국가적 가족연계에 대한 관심이 부족하다는 점에서 출발하였다. 우리나라는 원칙적으로 가족 단위의 이민을 허락하지 않지만 2012년 결혼이주여성들의 초기 정착 및 출산과 양육지원을 위하여 가족초청제도가 도입되었다. 따라서 결혼이주여성들의 본국 가족들이 합법적으로 한국에서 일정기간 함께 살면서 여러 가지 지원 제공을 할 수 있다. 그러나 결혼이주여성들의 본국 가족 동거 현상 및 차별적 결정요인에 대해서는 잘 알려진 바 없다. 2018년 전국다문화가족실태 조사자료를 분석한 결과, 결혼이주여성 중 5% 정도만 현재 본국 가족과 함께 살고 있으며 어머니와 함께 사는 비율이 압도적으로 높다. 베트남과 중국(조선족과 한족) 출신이 본국 가족과 동거하는 비율이 높으며, 여성의 경제활동, 미취학 자녀 수, 본국 가족을 한국에 초청한 경험, 가구소득이 본국 가족과의 동거 확률에 정적인 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 반면 결혼이주여성의 연령, 결혼기간, 한국인 배우자의 부모님과 동거는 본국 가족과의 동거 확률을 낮추었다. 즉 동일한 제도적 여건하에서도 가족에 대한 문화적 가치관, 현실적인 경제적 조건, 여성의 경제활동, 과거 교류 경험이 동거의 차이를 나타냄을 알 수 있다. 본국 가족 중 어머니, 부모님 모두, 여자형제와 사는 경우로 구분하여 살펴보면, 미취학 아동수와 과거 결혼이주여성의 본국 가족을 한국으로 초청했던 경험만 일관적으로 동거확률을 높이는 것으로 나타났다. 즉 과거 교류 경험이 중요하며 결혼이주여성의 자녀양육 및 돌봄에 대한 책임을 덜어주기 위해 본국 가족과의 동거가 일어나는 것으로 이해할 수 있다. 결혼이주여성의 초국가적 가족연계를 보다 면밀히 살펴보기 위하여 관련 자료 수집 및 사회적, 학문적 관심이 요구된다.

From ‘social problems’ to ‘social assets’: geopolitics, discursive shifts in children of Southeast Asian marriage migrants, and mother-child dyadic citizenship in Taiwan

ABSTRACT In recent years, the discourse surrounding children of Southeast Asian (SEA) marriage migrants in Taiwan has seen a dramatic shift from the discourse of ‘social problems’ to that of ‘social assets’. By integrating perspectives of critical geopolitics and critical discourse analysis, this paper shows that this discursive shift has resulted from the dual impacts of the ‘mother-child dyadic citizenship’ and the geopolitics of the triad of Taiwan, SEA, and China. It is argued that the state formulates laws and policies concerning marriage migration based on the mother-child dyad rather than the individual-state nexus, while SEA is used merely as leverage against China. Moreover, confronted with an increasingly competitive global economy, especially the impending threat of a rising PRC, Taiwan’s immigration laws have become more classist, discriminating against Southeast Asian marriage migrants in contradiction with the current positive discourse, which reveals that the state–citizen relationship has evolved into a corporate-consumer relationship.

Afterword

ABSTRACT This Afterword to the Special Issue on ‘Marriage Migration, Family and Citizenship in Asia’ seeks to foreground some key themes from the six articles it contains. Drawing on some old conceptual friends of the field – including Appadurai’s model of disjunctive global ‘scapes’ and flows, and Plummer’s notion of ‘Intimate Citizenship’ – it highlights particularly significant contributions to understanding processes and practices of citizenship connected to marriage migration, through attention to diversity, continuity, and disjuncture. The disjunctures documented here encompass tensions between processes not just at the level of family and the nation, but between national and inter- or transnational dynamics – highlighting inequalities in intimate citizenship, but also providing potential spaces for change and agency. This rich collection therefore represents a substantial contribution to a foundational issue in the literature on marriage migration – the question of how to conceptualise the agency of marriage migrants, who paradoxically manage the agentic leap of migration at the same time as being profoundly dependent on their citizen spouses, with the well documented potential for victimisation this dependency contains.

Discretionary maternal citizenship: state hegemony and resistance of single marriage migrant mothers from mainland China to Hong Kong

ABSTRACT This article contributes to the scholarship on marriage migration and citizenship by drawing attention to an under-studied group of single marriage migrant mothers who are widowed, divorced, or separated from their citizen-husbands. It examines the ways in which nation-states regulate the dissolution of cross-border marriages and allocation of citizenship rights to single marriage migrant mothers. Drawing on the experiences of 25 mainland Chinese single marriage migrant mothers, this article unravels the dynamic process of citizenship negotiation between top-down state hegemony and single marriage migrant mothers’ bottom-up resistance to the exclusionary immigration system in Hong Kong by claiming maternal citizenship through state discretion. As the article illuminates how discretion has been used as a strategic mechanism by both the state and single marriage migrant mothers to negotiate the boundaries and substance of citizenship, it offers insights into how the family becomes a critical site where citizenship is experienced, negotiated, and contested.

Penalizing ‘runaway’ migrant wives: commercial cross-border marriages and home space as confinement

ABSTRACT This study examines the use of the term ‘gachul (absconding from home)’ in courts and immigration policies to punish the behavior of marriage migrant women who enter South Korea after marriage and then leave their husbands. The study focuses on penalized mobility outside migrants’ marital homes, which is interpreted as deviance from the expected family role. By conceptualizing home as a confinable space, the paper discusses migrant women’s exclusion from citizenship based on their contribution to the family. The paper draws from cases heard in criminal courts and laws and policies, paying attention to the conflation of criminal, immigration, and family laws and the effect on marriage and family. Notably, it highlights cases of uxoricide, marital rape, and international child abduction. The cases reveal that judicial and executive bodies penalize marriage migrants’ departure from home, regardless of the justification for their actions.

“He Sees Me as His Possession and Thinks He Can Do What He Wants.” Dependent Stay and Partner Violence among Moroccan Marriage Migrant Women in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT Partner violence, including physical, psychological, and sexual violence, is a problem in the Netherlands, just as it is all over the world. A special category of women who are affected by these forms of violence are marriage migrants; a group that is particularly vulnerable in the first five years after migration to the Netherlands because of their dependence on their partner for residence rights. This article, based on qualitative research among Moroccan women in the Netherlands, examines the position of this group of women and analyses the role that dependent residence plays in partner violence. In the Netherlands, a process of “culturalization of male-female relationships” is going on, for migrant couples, especially for Muslims. Male-female relations and violence against women are explained by reference to Islam or cultural concepts such as “group culture”, “honour and shame”. In this article we argue how legal regulations in the surrounding society play an important role.

가족해체 결혼이주여성의 가족재구성 경험에 관한 질적연구

This study is to examine the family dissolution and reconstruction experiences of marriage migrant women. To this end, in-depth interviews were conducted with seven marriage migrant women who got divorced and then formed new couple relationships in Korea. The data were analyzed by a phenomenological analysis method. As a result, the analysis identified 146 meaningful statements and 28 sub-categories resulting in 9 core categories: ‘getting off on the wrong foot,’ ‘mounting conflict and distrust,’ ‘expressions of deepening conflict and increasing anxiety,’ ‘escape from pain and incomplete freedom,’ ‘becoming a Korean as a mother for Korean children,’ ‘desire for happiness,’ ‘crack of happiness,’ ‘repositioning’ and ‘exercising embedded agency.’ The nature of marriage migrant women’s experience derived from these categories could be described as ‘surviving beyond the barrier behind the barrier.’ Based on the main findings, this paper discusses the practical implications for marriage migrants.

Sexualities and class in transnational family practices of LGB migrants in Belgium and the Netherlands

The present paper focuses on transnational families of lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) migrants and addresses their peculiar absence in sociological and geographical perspectives across migrations, families and sexualities research. It draws from a study of middle-class LGB migrants who are married or raising children with a same-sex partner in Belgium and the Netherlands and their parents still residing in select Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries with constitutional protection of heterosexual marriage. The goal of the study is to examine how intersections of class and sexualities shape CEE LGB migrants’ trajectories and transnational family practices. The analysis is based on one life story, situated in a comparative framework. The present study approaches the middle-class experiences and non-normative sexualities of CEE migrants as continuously reappearing and disappearing privileges and disadvantages. From this viewpoint, the study highlights class advantages as consistently alleviating the disadvantages of non-normative sexualities, but also simultaneously bringing both further restrictions and additional benefits to the married CEE LGB migrants, particularly those with children. These restrictions are best reflected in the limits to further mobilities that stem from the risk of losing extensive legal protection of same-sex partnership and parenting. The benefits further extending class advantages are identifiable in the intensification of transnational family practices following planned same-sex parenthood. These not only transform and strengthen the intimacies of CEE LGB migrants with their families-of-origin, but they also contribute to shifting assumptions of ‘normal’ familyhood, particularly in relation to technology-assisted reproduction, social parenthood and the nurturer roles.

Transnational logic of gratitude: Marriage migrants’ narratives on marital satisfaction in South Korea

Scholarship on marriage migrants has examined the impact of class and gender ideology of receiving countries on their marital satisfaction. However, little is known about the role of transnational background in explaining women’s feelings of gratitude for husbands. Drawing on qualitative in-depth interviews with marriage migrant women residing in the eastern side of Seoul, Korea, this article explores the micro-level cognitive processes in understanding women’s gratitude for their husbands. Categorizing marriage migrants into two groups, ‘gratified’ and ‘ungratified’ wives, the author demonstrates how the gratified wives’ feelings of contentment is mediated by their active comparison of Korean husbands with local men in their homelands, and how these viewpoints conversely affect their aspirations for return. Bringing the sociology of emotion into an explanation of marriage migrants’ marital satisfaction, this study aims to develop a transnational frame of reference as an underlying dynamic for comprehending marriage migrants’ (in)gratitude.

Psychological Adaptation among Marriage Migrant Women in South Korea: Stress and Coping, Culture Learning, and Social Cognition Approaches

This study is an examination of determinants of psychological adaptation among marriage migrant women in South Korea within three main theories: stress and coping, culture learning, and social cognition. Generalized ordinary logistic regression is applied to the 2015 National Multicultural Family Survey. The results reveal that loneliness and family conflicts have negative effects on psychological adaptation while social supports result in positive effects. Participation in gatherings with Koreans and Korean language proficiency work positively for psychological adaptation, while residence period and cultural differences have negative effects. Discrimination is also negatively associated with psychological adaptation.

Married to rubber? Evidence from the expansion of natural rubber in Southwest China

The environmental and economic effects of rubber expansion in southeast Asia have been widely explored, while the possible social influence on local community is rarely investigated. This paper investigates the impacts of rubber cultivation by women's natal households on women's decisions about matrilocal residence after marriage in an ethnic-minority region of Southwest China from the perspectives of family labor and resource endowment. The results suggest that economic factors extend beyond Dai women's traditional customs to determine a woman's decision to live in a matrilocal residence. When labor constraints and resource heterogeneity are present, higher household labor demand and the possession of more location-specific resources such as rubber plantations may increase the likelihood of female family members living in a matrilocal residence after marriage. The findings complement the literature on both the social impacts of agroforestry expansion and the marriage migration in a community with unequally distributed, location-specific resources.

The historical development of the nature of ‘desirability’ in naturalisation regimes in East and Southeast Asia

ABSTRACT This paper compares the naturalisation regimes for migrants in East Asia (China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan) and Southeast Asia (Malaysia and Singapore), examining how these states have reconfigured their boundaries of citizenship based on ‘desirability’ since the early 20th century. There are some attributes of desirability for which naturalisation regimes privilege some groups of migrants over others. The hierarchy of desirability in the East and Southeast Asian naturalisation regimes since the late 20th century has been constructed based on class differences. At the top of the hierarchy of desirability, skilled professionals constitute a selective group of desired migrants, whereas marriage migrants and low-skilled migrants are at the bottom of the hierarchy. Naturalisation regimes give less weight to the social contribution of migrant spouses and the economic contribution of unskilled migrant workers than to that of skilled workers. The lower weighting is the reason for their exclusion, regardless of their territorial presence in the state. Coming into the 21st century, East and Southeast Asian naturalisation regimes show a similar pattern of convergence based on economic desirability when these states engage in what Shachar has called ‘talent-for-citizenship exchange’.

Remarriage among older immigrants and their host country peers – a countrywide study

With immigrants across Europe ageing in increasing numbers, this article uses Danish administrative data to map the unexplored remarriage patterns among three groups of older immigrants and compare them to their Danish host country peers. Results show that remarriage late in life is uncommon. When it occurs, men remarry more often than women, with the gender difference many times larger among immigrants. For choice of spouse, most marriages are endogamous, with immigrants predominantly finding spouses transnationally. The data also reveal a distinct age pattern in all groups, with wives substantially younger when marriages are transnational, i.e. when wives arrive as marriage migrants. In addition to extending the literature on remarriage in old age to include immigrant groups, this study also documents both the centrality of older immigrants finding spouses transnationally and the existence of substantial age differences in transnational remarriages, regardless of whether husbands are immigrants or not.