Wife or worker? Worker or wife? Marriage and cross‐border migration in contemporary Japan

Abstract

The global trend of increasing numbers of international couples can also be witnessed in Japan where Southeast and Northeast Asian women dominate numerically. This paper reviews the existing literature on marriage and migration exploring the connections between international migration for work and international marriage. It is argued that a dichotomous approach analysing migrant women as either migrants for marriage or overseas contract workers needs to be questioned. Based on a lack of theorising as well as a lack of empirical studies of the link between migration and marriage, the aim is to set out a new conceptual framework highlighting marriage either as the result of cross‐border migration or the cause thereof and to give some directions for future research. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Globalisation of Marriage Fields: The Swedish Case

“…Increasing ease of air travel for work and leisure, rising numbers of individuals studying, working and travelling abroad, and the emergence of international partnering websites can be expected to increase the 'risk' of meeting a potential partner from abroad (see Piper, 2003). Globalisation couldthrough reshaping the geographic opportunity set of potential partners -lead to a globalisation of marriage fields for at least a part of the population.…”

“…This industry has, since the 1960s, increased enormously in size and spread across borders (Kojima, 2001). According to the literature most of these commercially 'arranged' marriages involve women from less developed countries -sometimes referred to as 'mailorder brides' -who are 'recruited' to more developed countries (Piper, 1999;2003).…”

Asian Cross-border Marriage Migration : Demographic Patterns and Social Issues

“…It is also noted that the nationality of foreign spouses has become more diverse in recent years along with the tide of globalization and labor force migration. Marriage migration across the border is also pervasive in Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, and Southeast Asian countries (Goodkind 1997;Piper 2003;Tsay 2004;Yang & Liu 2005). In Taiwan, the proportion of crossborder marriages has reached 32 percent of overall marriages registered in 2003 (Tsay 2004).…”

“…Much of the literature on international marriage is either rooted in theories of interracial marriages in general, or focused on Asia and mail-order brides in particular (Piper 2003). In a perfectly frictionless marriage market, people should be able to marry freely among different socioeco- 4 1961 1964 1967 1970 1973 1976 1979 1982 1985 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000 2003 2006 Ages 25-29…”

“…Recently, a massive exodus of young women from Southeast Asian countries and their roles as workers and brides in Japan and Taiwan have received increasing attention from scholars (Piper 1999(Piper , 2003 Korean society has experienced a drastic increase in divorce recently. The increasing divorce rates have also been remarkable for those married to foreign spouses.…”