Marriage Migration of Women from China and
Southeast Asia to Taiwan*
Ching-lung Tsay#
* To be published as Chapter 7 in (Un)tying the Knot: Ideal and Reality in
Asian Marriage (edited by Gavin Jones and Kamalini Ramdas), National
University of Singapore Press (forthcoming in August 2004).
# Professor at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Tamkang
University, and Adjunct Fellow at the Institute of Economics, Academia
Sinica, both in Taipei, Taiwan.
1
2
Marriage Migration of Women from China and Southeast Asia to Taiwan
Ching-lung Tsay
Introduction
In the past few decades, Taiwan has experienced dramatic changes including demographic
transition, economic liberalisation, political democratisation, and social diversification. The national
transformation has been particularly remarkable since the mid-1980s when the forty-year-old martial
law was lifted in 1987. As a result of the changes, the island-state has become more and more
involved in the process of globalisation, one major aspect of which is human interactions with the rest
of the world through migration, especially the inflows of foreign workers and the immigration of
spouses married to Taiwanese.
Foreign workers entered Taiwan through clandestine migration in the 1980s and through the
officially managed labour importation schemes since the early 1990s. The number did not reach
100,000 until 1993, but surged to its peak of 330,000 in 2000. The current volume in 2004 is around
290,000. In addition, there are irregular migrants of unknown number, mainly from China, working in
Taiwan.
Slightly more recently, there has been an increasing number of Taiwanese who married
foreigners and brought their spouses to Taiwan. In early 2004, the total number of marriage
immigrants went over 300,000. The majority of them are women (93 per cent), mainly from China and
Southeast Asia. Both the immigrant spouses and the migrant workers have become significant groups
in Taiwan in the past decade.
While there are a substantial number of studies on foreign workers, research on the immigrant
spouses in Taiwan has so far been very limited. The existing academic papers tend to focus on a
particular group of “foreign brides,” such as Chinese (Chen, 2000), Indonesian (Hsia, 2003, 2000) and
Vietnamese (Chang and Wang, 2002; Tan and Tsai, 2000; Wang, 2002). The studies tend to look at
marriage migration from the perspective of economic globalisation. The (female) spouses are
portrayed as deserving sympathy because they are disadvantaged in the internationalisation of capital
3
and trade. Others examine the adjustment and assimilation problems of the new group of population in
Taiwan (Chiu, 2003). What is lacking is an overview of the trend in marriage migration to Taiwan as a
whole. This paper aims to provide some information along this line. Following this introduction, the
significance and characteristics of the immigrant spouses will be investigated. Subsequently, the
relevant issues and the responses from the government and the public will be discussed before the
conclusion.
Significance and Trend
Historically, Taiwan is a migratory society with most ancestors of the population having
moved from southern China since four centuries ago. In the past half century, however, the population
was almost closed to immigration due to the unique political environment. Consequently, the number
of foreign nationals in Taiwan has been rather small – only a few thousand before 1970 and reaching
23,000 only in 1981. The number surged rapidly in the 1990s with the start of the opening up of the
Taiwanese labour market to Southeast Asian workers through importation schemes. The number was
further increased by the influx of spouses from China and Southeast Asia.
To reveal the significance of marriage migration to Taiwan, Table 1 presents the most up to
date information on the composition of the total number of foreigners and foreign spouses who have
recently been naturalised. In May 2004, the total volume of foreigners (including the naturalised
spouses, for the purpose of this study) was close to 630,000. Among them, 31 per cent (195,000) came
from China through marriage. The size of foreign population from countries other than China is
around 410,000 (65 per cent). Among them, 280,000 are imported contract workers, 90,000 are
immigrant spouses who have not yet been naturalised, and the other 41,000 are foreigners of other
statuses. The number of immigrant spouses from countries other than China who have become citizens
of Taiwan is 22,000 (20 per cent of a group of 111,683).
Insert Table 1
For the immigrant spouses as a whole, the volume is 306,700, accounting for a half of the
4
total foreign population (49 per cent) in Taiwan. Among them, almost two-thirds (195,000) came from
China and the remaining third (111,700) from other countries (mostly Southeast Asian nations). The
total number of immigrant spouses is bigger than the population of at least three of Taiwan’s 23
administrative sub-divisions (i.e. Taitung and Penghu Counties and Chia-I City) and only slightly
smaller than two others. Adding the number of contract workers (280,000 from Southeast Asia) to all
the immigrant spouses, the total number is about 587,000. This volume is significantly larger than the
size of the indigenous population of Taiwan (430,000), which is the fourth biggest ethnic group of the
country (next to Holo, Hakka, and Wai-seng). Furthermore, the sum of the immigrant workers and
spouses is larger than the population of 11 out of the 23 cities and counties in Taiwan. It is clear that
marriage migration, along with labour importation, has had a significant impact on the demographics
of Taiwan.
Table 1 additionally indicates that the foreign population in Taiwan has a high proportion of
females (73 per cent). The groups of immigrant spouses are distinctive in having a very high female
component of over 90 per cent. The data implies that the majority of the immigrant spouses are brides,
regardless of their places of origin. The following discussion will thus focus mostly on the marriage
migration of women from China and Southeast Asia to Taiwan.
Table 2 presents the trend data of the size of foreign population by type and sex for 1992-2004.
It should be noted that the immigrant spouses from China are not included in this table due to the lack
of information for most of the early years. The statistics show that the number of foreign nationals
increased almost ten times in the 12 years, from less than 45,000 to over 410,000. The importation of
contract workers evidently played the most important role in shaping this increasing trend. There has,
however, also been a substantial increase in foreigners other than contract workers, including mainly
immigrant spouses. The rise was especially clear in the late 1990s, when numbers tripled from 41,345
in 1995 to 130,505 in 2004. Table 2 further shows an obvious trend towards feminisation of the
foreign population, both the contract workers and others.
Insert Table 2
5
The feminisation process of foreign nationals in Taiwan can be observed in Figure 1. For the
group of other foreigners, the number of females surged rapidly from 1999. This finding is consistent
with the big increase in the number of Taiwanese men married to Southeast Asian women in the past
few years, which is evidenced by Table 3. The last column shows that the number of registered
marriages with foreigners other than Chinese increased from less than 15,000 in 1999 to over 21,000
in 2000, and then levelled off at 20,000. The pattern of increase in the case of marriages with Chinese
is continuous and more rapid. It doubled from 17,589 in 1999 to 35,473 in 2003.
Insert Figure 1
Insert Table 3
Table 3 additionally indicates the increasing significance of international marriages in Taiwan.
In 1998, 16 per cent of the 145,976 Taiwanese registered marriages were with foreigners (8.5 per cent
with Chinese and 7.2 per cent with other foreigners). The proportion doubled to reach 32 per cent in
2003. In the case of marriages with Chinese, the contribution increased continuously from 8.5 per cent
in 1998 to 20.7 per cent in 2003. Unlike the Chinese case, the contribution made by marriages with
other foreigners increased in the first two years, but has stabilised at the level of 11 per cent since
2000. For the whole period of 1998-2003, one-quarter of the registered marriages were international
marriages, slightly more of them with Chinese than with other foreigners. In terms of trend, the
category of marriages with Chinese has been gaining more and more importance as compared with the
marriages with foreigners from other countries.
Characteristics
As stated earlier, the majority (92 per cent) of the 306,700 immigrant spouses in Taiwan are
females, mostly from China (two-thirds) and Southeast Asia (one-third). The following discussion will
focus on major characteristics such as age, education and spatial distribution of the Chinese and
Southeast Asian brides. Based on the 2003 marriage registration information, Table 4 reports the
number and age composition of both brides and grooms by nationality. For Taiwanese, there are
6
42,495 more males than females married in 2003, indicating a gender imbalance. Furthermore, the age
distribution of Taiwanese grooms is skewed more towards higher ages than that of their female
counterparts. Consequently, grooms have a mean age at marriage five years older than brides (33.7 vs.
28.3).
Among the brides, Chinese are very different from Southeast Asians in terms of age
composition. About a half of Chinese brides were 30 years or older when they got married in 2003,
while almost 90 per cent of Southeast Asian brides were aged less than 30. As a result, the mean age at
marriage is 31.3 and 23.6 for Chinese and Southeast Asians, respectively. The data confirms the
tendency for Taiwanese men at older ages to marry Chinese women in their 40s or older. Some of
these older males are retired military servicemen who moved from China to Taiwan in the late 1940s
and early 1950s. Others include such disadvantaged groups as workers, farmers, and fishermen in
rural places, the handicapped, and the underemployed or unemployed, who had difficulties in getting
married at younger ages.
Based on the marriage registration records of 2001, a special tabulation of the age difference
between grooms and brides was made for the three major groups of brides by nationality (Table 5).
For the group of Taiwanese brides, almost 60 per cent of them are 0-4 years younger than their
husbands, and another 22 per cent 5-9 years younger. This distribution of age difference is very
different from the two cases of Chinese and Southeast Asian brides. In the Chinese case, over a half
(55 per cent) of the brides are ten or more years younger than their grooms (36 per cent 10-19 years
younger, 13 per cent 20-29 years younger, and 6.4 per cent 30 or more years younger). This finding
confirms the fact that older Taiwanese men tend to marry women from China, as stated in the last
paragraph.
A similar but less skewed distribution was found for the group of Southeast Asian brides. 67
per cent of them are ten or more years younger than their partners. In most cases, however, the age
difference is within 10-19 years (51 per cent). Only two per cent of the Southeast Asian women
married Taiwanese men who are 30 or more years older. It is clear that the husbands of Southeast
7
Asian brides are relatively younger than the grooms of Chinese women, given that the Southeast Asian
brides are much younger than the Chinese women. Only nine per cent of the Southeast Asian brides
married Taiwanese men who are 0-4 years older than them. This share is far below that of Taiwanese
brides (57 per cent). Assuming that 0-4 years is an ideal age difference between spouses, Southeast
Asian women seem to have sacrificed themselves by marrying Taiwanese men who are substantially
older than them.
Table 6 reports data on educational composition of grooms and brides by nationality. For
Taiwanese, brides clearly have a higher level of educational attainment than grooms. This finding
confirms the “slope hypothesis” in marriage theory that men tend to marry women who are younger,
less educated, and of lower status. Among brides, Chinese and Southeast Asians are not significantly
different from each other in educational distribution, but in both cases their education is much lower
than Taiwanese. The table suggests that the less educated Taiwanese men tend to get married with
women from China and Southeast Asia.
As indicated above, women from Southeast Asia and China tend to marry disadvantaged
groups of men in Taiwan. This point is also evident in the spatial distribution of foreign brides by
nationality as shown in Table 7. The data reveal that Chinese brides are relatively more concentrated
in cities and their surrounding urban areas (e.g. Taipei City, Taipei and Taoyuan Counties, and
Kaohsiung City and County), as well as in places where facilities for retired military servicemen are
located (e.g. Hualien County). By contrast, Southeast Asian brides are more widely spread out into
rural places in Taiwan. This distinction in geographic distribution between the two groups of brides
reflects the difference in socio-economic status of their husbands.
To reveal the relative importance of international marriages, Table 7 also presents the
percentage of marriages with foreign brides in the total marriages at the city/county level. In 2003, 28
per cent of the 171,483 marriages in Taiwan were made with foreign brides. The Chinese brides
accounted for two-thirds of these, while brides from other countries (mainly Southeast Asian nations)
covered the remaining one-third. At the sub-divisional level, the percentage of international marriage
8
is highest in the most remote rural part of Taiwan (i.e. Eastern Region, 40 per cent), while low in the
more developed Northern and Central Regions.
At the city/county level, nine units appear to be unique in having a high percentage of
international marriages. They can be divided into two groups: (1) Keelung City, Kaohsiung City, and
Kaohsiung, Taitung and Hualien Counties, and (2) Yunlin, Chiayi, Tainan, and Pintung Counties. The
high percentage of international marriages found in each of the five units of the first group is due to
the large contribution made by the brides from China, while the contribution by Southeast Asian
brides is smaller than the average. By contrast, the four counties in the second group have a high
percentage of marriages with women from Southeast Asia. In the case of Pintung County, both
Chinese and Southeast Asian brides made substantial contributions.
It would be worthwhile to examine the distinctive characteristics of the two groups of
administrative units mentioned above. The four counties of the second group are all in the southern
half of Taiwan, with Pintung County in the deepest south. They are all major agricultural areas
including some remote places. The counties are relatively less developed and with lower income level
and high out migration rate. The young Southeast Asian brides are needed there for demographic,
economic and social reasons. In the first group, Keelung and Kaohsiung Cities and Kaohsiung County
are all parts of the two biggest metropolitan areas in Taiwan, where the immigrants from China in the
1940s and 1950s and their descendants are more concentrated. Taitung and Haulien Counties are
distinctive in having vast areas of settlement for retired military servicemen.
This group of men
usually prefers to marry women from China.
As Southeast Asia is the next major source of foreign spouses after China, Table 8 shows their
national distribution by gender at the end of 2003. Among the total of 85,721 foreign spouses, 91 per
cent are females, indicating an extremely high gender imbalance. Out of the 78,391 foreign brides, 96
per cent came from six less developed Southeast Asian nations. Vietnam is the leading supplier of
brides to Taiwan, accounting for 69 per cent of the sum of the six countries. This is followed by
Indonesia (15 per cent). The proportion of brides from Thailand, the Philippines, and Cambodia is 6.5,
9
4.8, and 3.5 per cent respectively. The data clearly reveal the dominance of Vietnam as a source of
foreign brides other than Chinese.
There are many explanations for this dominance of Vietnamese brides. One major factor is the
strong feeling among Taiwanese of the similarity between Vietnam and Taiwan in terms of the people,
culture, religion, and way of life. It is often mentioned that the appearance and complexion of
Vietnamese are very close to Taiwanese. They also have similar religious beliefs and ways of ancestor
worship. Most critically, Taiwanese have the deep impression that Vietnamese women were brought
up in patriarchal families, and were socialised well in forming their attitudes toward the family,
children, parents, and husband. In this sense, young Vietnamese women fit well with the expectation
of Taiwanese men and parents. Many of Taiwanese men are interested in searching for brides who are
willing to please and serve other family members. In Taiwan, the foreign brides in general and
Vietnamese brides in particular, provide an interesting case to investigate the question of “Wife or
Worker? Worker or Wife?” postulated by Piper (2003).
Issues and Prospects
In the few decades after World War II, Taiwan was a poverty-stricken country facing
population pressure and low per capita income (Tsay, 2003). The issue of immigration was never of
concern until the mid 1980s when clandestine migrant workers from Southeast Asia were observed in
Taiwan for the first time. After the legalisation of labour importation schemes starting in the late 1980s
and early 1990s, the public attention to foreigners became stronger when the number of imported
contract workers surged rapidly to approach 300,000 in the mid-1990s. Nevertheless, the foreign
workers have usually been seen as temporary sources to provide a supplementary labour force. The
issue of foreign workers is often treated differently from that of permanent immigration.
The emergence of marriage migration in the mid-1990s and the rapid increase in its volume at
the turn of the century has forced the Taiwan government and public to face the immigration issue
seriously. Because of time lags in recognising the scale and importance of the issue, most of the
10
responses to the immigration issue have appeared only in the past one or two years. In 2003, the
Ministry of the Interior started to implement the Action Plan of Providing Services and Assistance to
Foreign Spouses (Yu, 2003). The plan covers 50 items in the eight categories of Assistance in Life
Adjustment, Provision of Medical Care, Assurance of Employment Rights, Services in Educational
and Cultural Activities, Assistance in Childbearing and Schooling, Protection against Violence, Abuse
and Exploitation, Improvement in Legal Institutions, and Provision of Relevant Information.
To gather baseline information for implementing the action plan, a survey to enumerate all the
immigrant spouses was conducted by the Ministry of the Interior in November 2003. About 176,000
immigrant spouses (close to 69 per cent of the registered number) were successfully located and
interviewed. The results of the survey will be released in July 2004. The survey data should provide
information useful for a more thorough understanding of the issue of marriage migration. At the local
level, many programmes specifically designed for the marriage migrants have been conducted under
the action plan, but it is still too early to formally evaluate the outcomes of the action plan.
Many other relevant cabinet-level agencies have also taken serious actions to study the issue
of marriage immigration. They include the Council of Economic Planning and Development, Council
of Mainland Affairs, and Ministry of Education. Outside the administrative system, the Control Yuan
has also set up an ad-hoc team, of which I am a member, to investigate the problems encountered by
the immigrant spouses and the local government. The team made over ten trips to almost all the major
places where immigrant spouses live. This action has created substantial pressure on the government
in dealing with the issue of marriage migration.
At the societal level, many organisations have been set up by concerned groups to facilitate
the adjustment process of the immigrant spouses. There are also associations organised by the
marriage migrants themselves with assistance from local non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
The Association of Southeast Asian Sisters in Taiwan was formally set up in Kaohsiung City in
December 2003, after a preparatory stage of a few years in the town of Chi-san. The Association for
Promoting the Rights of Cross-Strait Spouses was set up several years ago, and has been active in
11
fighting for the interests of those inter-marrying between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Despite these efforts, there are many more problems to be solved. A major question is whether
there should be a quota for the intake of marriage migrants. Both marriage and migration are basic
human rights. In principle, there should be no limitation on the volume of immigration through family
reunification after marriage. In reality though, Taiwan has set up a quota system for marriage
migration from China. The major reasons include the state of political relations across the Taiwan
Strait and the dominance of Chinese in the total number of marriage immigrants (two-thirds). For
national security considerations, the government insists on a limit on the intake of marriage migrants
from China. As a result, it will take much longer for the marriage immigrants from China to obtain
Taiwan citizenship than their Southeast Asian counterparts (eight years vs. one year). This fact has led
to criticism of discrimination against the Chinese, which will be a major topic for debate in the future.
A high proportion of the intermarriages between Taiwanese men and Southeast Asian or
Chinese women were facilitated by international marriage brokers. They arrange the so-called
“Shopping” tours for the men to find their brides. At the same time, they provide the female side with
information about the male side. They commonly exaggerate the wealth and status of the men’s
families, or even give false information. This tendency raises women’s expectations before coming to
Taiwan and results in deep disappointment after arriving in Taiwan. It is a big challenge for the
government to properly identify the role of the brokers and to regulate them efficiently.
While there are problematic intermarriages in Taiwan, there are also more successful ones.
Given the recent fertility decline, the contribution made by the foreign brides to the national number
of births has been well recognised and appreciated. The total fertility rate (TFR) in Taiwan has
decreased continuously in the past few years, from already low levels, to reach 1.24 in 2003, one of
the lowest in the world. While the number of births decreased rapidly from 305,000 in 2000 to
227,000 in 2003, the percentage borne by immigrant mothers increased from 7.6 to 13.4 per cent.
Currently, one out of every 7.5 births is from a marriage migrant. It is clear that the marriage
immigrants, especially the young ones, are and will continue to be making an important contribution
12
to the future population of Taiwan.
The marriage immigrants are not only biologically productive, but also economically
productive. Many of them work hard to help with the household economy by doing agricultural jobs
or acting as unpaid family workers. Others provide care services needed by family members or take
care of most of the household work, which their aged parents-in-law are not able to perform (Chang,
et al., 2003a, 2003b). Given the changes in the population structure of Taiwan and the workforce
shortage, the marriage immigrants will be an irreplaceable part of the country. It is thus critically
important for Taiwan to have them well settled and integrated in the society. This is the direction in
which the government is working hard.
With regard to the issues faced by the marriage immigrants, there is a clear distinction
between the Chinese and the Southeast Asians. According to our in-depth interviews, the marriage
immigrants from China are mostly worried about their old age care arrangement, as they are relatively
old and their husbands are even much older. Many of them were married before moving to Taiwan as
spouses of Taiwanese. They would like to request the government to allow them to bring their adult
children of previous marriages from China to Taiwan. This is an uncommon practice even in a typical
immigration country like Australia (Iredale, 1994; Iredale, et al., 1992). It would be very difficult, if
not impossible, for the government to grant this permission.
As the marriage immigrants from Southeast Asia are mostly young, they are more concerned
about issues related to the family, such as childbearing and child health, education and well-being of
children, family life and household economy, as well as their adjustment and integration into the
Taiwanese society. It is apparent that the marriage immigrants from Southeast Asia, mostly in first
marriages, have a stronger desire and determination to build up good families with their husbands.
Even though they are handicapped to various extents in language, many of them have made
remarkable efforts to realise their expectations of the marriage and the migration (Chang, et al.,
2003a).
Given the prospects of a continuing role for marriage immigration, it is important to know the
13
attitude of the general public toward intermarriages. The findings of a survey of 1,068 respondents
conducted in October 2003 indicate that Taiwanese people are not ready to face the marriage
migration issue positively (Chen, 2003). Over a half of the respondents were not aware of the
significance of marriage immigration and its impact on fertility. With regard to placing a limit on the
intake of marriage immigrants, close to 60 per cent responded positively. In other words, the basic
human rights of marriage and family reunification were not considered and respected. It was
surprising to note that one out of five respondents denied the need to treat the marriage immigrants
fairly.
On the difference between marriage immigrants from China and Southeast Asia, the
respondents are most worried about the quality of marriage for the first group, and the problem of
educating children for the second group. Among single Taiwanese females, 35 per cent expressed a
negative opinion on the men who married foreigners. In contrast, 20 per cent of unmarried Taiwanese
men indicated their interest in marrying women from Southeast Asia or China. Overall, the survey
pointed to a worrisome scenario for marriage migration to Taiwan. Given the significance and future
trend of marriage immigration stated above, more contacts with the “New Taiwanese” are surely
needed in order for them to be understood and accepted.
Summary and Conclusion
Since the early 1990s, there has been an increasing number of Taiwanese marrying foreigners
and bringing their spouses to Taiwan. By the end of 2003, the total number was about 300,000. The
majority of them are women (93 per cent), mainly from China and Southeast Asia. The Chinese
account for two-thirds of the total, and Southeast Asians for the remaining third. Among the Southeast
Asian nations, Vietnam is the leading source (69 per cent), followed by Indonesia (15 per cent). In
Taiwan, the Chinese women are more concentrated in urban areas while Southeast Asians are more
widely spread out to rural places. The Southeast Asian females are much younger at the time they
marry a Taiwanese husband than their Chinese counterparts (average age of 23.6 vs. 31.3). Both
14
groups of migrant women are mostly ten or more years younger than their Taiwanese husbands. One
major concern of the Chinese is the care arrangement for their lives when they become elderly. They
would like to bring their children of previous marriages from China to Taiwan. On the contrary, the
Southeast Asians are more concerned about issues such as childbearing, education of children, family
life and household economy, and their adjustment to Taiwanese society. Mostly entering first
marriages, they clearly reveal a stronger desire and effort than the Chinese brides to build up families
with their husbands. Unfortunately, the general public in Taiwan is not ready to view the marriage
immigration positively. More effort is still needed to understand the “New Taiwanese” and to accept
them. The government has recently started to implement specific programmes to work toward this
direction.
References
Chang, Bi-huei., et al. 2003a. “Big Change in Population, Part 1” (in Mandarin), The Earth
Geographic Monthly 188: 16-79
. 2003b. “Big Change in Population, Part 2” (in Mandarin), The Earth Geographic
Monthly 189: 54-73
Chang, Shu-ming and Hong-Zen Wang. 2002. “The Commodification of International
Marriages: Cross-Border Marriage Business in Taiwan and Vietnam”, International Migration
6: 93-116
Chen, Huei-ping. 2003. “Close Gate or Open Mind? Survey Report on Public Attitude” (in
Mandarin), The Earth Geographic Monthly 189: 72-74
Chen, Nancy Hsiao-hon. 2000. “Marriage Migration across the Taiwan Strait” (in Mandarin),
Asian Studies 34: 35-68
Chiou, Shwu-wen. 2003. Gender and Migration (in Mandarin). Taipei: Taiwan Elite Press.
Hsia, Hsiao-Chuan. 2003. “Internationalisation of Capital and Trade in Asian Women: the
Case of 'Foreign Brides' in Taiwan” in Women and Globalisation, ed. Delia Aguilar and Anne
Lacsamana. Humanity Books Press.
. 2000. “Transnational Marriage and Internationalisation of Capital — the Case of
the ‘Foreign Bride’ Phenomenon in Taiwan” (in Chinese), Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in
Social Studies 39: 45-92
15
Hull, Terence H. 2002. “The Marriage Revolution in Indonesia”. Paper presented at the
Population Association of America annual meeting, Atlanta, U.S.A.
Iredale, Robyn. 1994. “Patterns of Spouse/ Fiance Sponsorship to Australia”, Asian and
Pacific Migration Journal 3(4): 547-566
Iredale, Robyn., et al. 1992. Serial Sponsorship: Immigration Policy and Human Rights.
Centre for Multicultural Studies, University of Wollongong, Australia
Jones, Gavin and Richard Leete. 2003. “Asia’s Family Planning Programs as Low Fertility Is
Attained”, Studies in Family Planning 33(1): 114-126
Piper, Nicola. 2003. “Wife or worker? Worker or wife? Marriage and Cross-Border Migration
in Contemporary Japan”, International Journal of Population Geography 9(6): 457-469
. 2000. “Dynamics of Interethnic Marriages: the Case of Korean-Japanese Couples”,
Bulletin of the Faculty of Sociology 31(2&3): 175-195
. 1999. “Labour Migration, Trafficking and International Marriage: Female
Cross-Border Movements into Japan”, Asian Journal of Women’s Studies 5(2): 69-99
. 1997. “International Marriage in Japan: ‘Race’ & ‘Gender’ Perspectives”, Gender,
Place and Culture 4(3): 321-338
Piper, Nicola and Mina Roces. ed. 2003. Wife or Worker? Asian Women and Migration.
Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Tan, Wen-Huei and Ya-Yu Tsai. 2000. “A Preliminary Study on the Vietnamese Brides in
Taiwan under Globalisation” (in Chinese). Paper presented at the Symposium on Sociological
Imagination under Globalisation: State, Economy and Society. Taipei, Taiwan
Tsay, Ching-Lung. 2003. “Below-Replacement Fertility and Prospects for Labour Force
Growth in Taiwan”, Journal of Population Research 20(1): 67-87
Wang, Hong-Zen. 2002. “Social Stratification, Vietnamese Partners Migration and Taiwanese
Labour Market” (in Chinese), Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in Social Studies 41: 99-128
Yang, Ai-li. 2003. “The Changing Face of Taiwan: New Wave of Immigration” (in Mandarin),
Commonwealth Semimonthly No. 271: 94-129
Yu, Cheng-Shian. 2003. “Special Report on the Assistance and Education Programs for
Foreign Spouses”. A Report from the Minister of the Interior, Taipei, Taiwan.
16
Table 1: Categorial Composition of the Total Number of Foreigners
and Naturalised Foreign Spouses, May 2004
Category
Both Sexes
No.
%
Male
No.
%
Female
No.
%
%
Female
Grand Total
China (Spouses)
627,297 100.0
195,000 31.1
172,353 100.0
14,000 8.1
454,944 100.0
181,000 39.8
72.5
92.8
Other Nations
Workers
Spouses
Others
410,297
279,791
89,683
40,823
65.4
44.6
14.3
6.5
156,853
119,272
7,686
29,895
91.0
69.2
4.5
17.3
253,444 55.7
160,519 35.3
81,997 18.0
10,928 2.4
61.8
57.4
91.4
26.8
Naturalised*
22,000
3.5
1,500
0.9
All Spouses#
306,683
48.9
23,186
Spouses other than Chinese
111,683
17.8
9,186
20,500
4.5
93.2
13.5
283,497 62.3
92.4
5.3
102,497 22.5
91.8
* Spouses from other than China who have been naturalised. Legally speaking, they are Taiwan
nationals, rather than foreigners.
# Including spouses from China and other nations, regardless of whether they have been naturalised.
Source: National Police Administration, and Department of Population, Ministry of the Interior.
17
Table 2: Number of Foreign Nationals* by Type and Sex in Taiwan, 1992-2004
Foreign Nationals
Total
Year
Both
Male
Contract Workers
Both
Male Female
%F.
Both
Others
Male Female
Female
%F.
1992
1993
1994
44,441 29,134 15,307
94,601 67,802 26,799
159,305 113,184 46,121
34.4
28.3
29.0
11,264
60,720
125,153
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
220,537
253,906
268,670
296,629
339,186
149,796
166,546
168,518
177,175
185,806
70,741
87,360
100,152
119,454
153,380
32.1
34.3
37.3
40.3
45.2
179,192
210,993
222,951
244,489
280,160
127,015 52,177
144,293 66,700
146,225 76,726
152,498 91,991
158,418 121,742
29.1
31.6
34.4
37.6
43.5
41,345
42,913
45,719
52,140
59,026
22,781
22,253
22,293
24,677
27,388
18,564
20,660
23,426
27,463
31,638
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004/04
388,189
383,663
410,268
405,284
410,296
183,171
167,094
164,388
157,046
156,852
205,018
216,569
241,363
248,238
253,444
52.8
56.5
58.8
61.3
61.8
308,122
287,337
288,878
283,239
279,791
153,283
136,054
128,074
122,317
119,272
50.3
52.7
55.7
56.8
57.4
80,067
96,326
121,390
122,045
130,505
29,888
31,040
36,314
34,729
37,580
50,179
65,286
80,599
87,316
92,925
33,177
33,881
34,152
*: Not including those from China
Source: National Police Administration
18
154,839
151,283
160,804
160,922
160,519
Figure1: Number of Foreign Nationals by Type and Sex in Taiwan, 1992-2004
300,000
250,000
200,000
Total-Male
Total-Female
Male Contract Workers
150,000
Female Contract Workers
Others-Male
100,000
Others-Female
50,000
19
20
03
20
04
/0
4
20
02
20
01
20
00
19
99
19
98
19
97
19
96
19
95
19
94
19
93
19
92
0
Table 3: Registered Number of Marriages by Nationality of Spouses, 1998-2003
Nationality of Foreign Spouse
No.
Year
All *
Marriages
(1)
Total
As % of
(1)
Chinese #
No.
1998
1999
2000
145,976
173,209
181,642
22,905
32,263
44,966
15.7
18.6
24.8
12,451
17,589
23,628
8.5
10.2
13.0
10,454
14,674
21,338
7.2
8.5
11.8
2001
2002
2003
170,515
172,655
171,483
46,202
49,013
55,116
27.1
28.4
32.1
26,797
28,906
35,473
15.7
16.7
20.7
19,405
20,107
19,643
11.4
11.7
11.5
Total
1,015,480
250,465
24.7
144,844
14.3
105,621
10.4
As % of
(1)
Notes:
* Including all marriages with Taiwanese nationals and foreigners.
# Including those from China, and from Hong Kong and Macao.
Source: Department of Population, Ministry of the Interior, Taipei, Taiwan.
20
Other Foreigners
No.
As % of
(1)
21
Table 4: Age Composition of Grooms and Brides Married
in 2003 by Nationality
Age
Total
Taiwan
Nationality
China
SE Asia
Others
Grooms
173,065
100.0
167,160
100.0
3,073
100.0
1,081
100.0
1,751
100.0
-20
20-24
25-29
30-34
35-39
40-49
50-59
60+
0.7
9.6
32.7
25.9
12.4
11.3
3.8
3.6
0.7
9.7
33.0
26.0
12.2
11.0
3.7
3.7
0.2
6.5
20.2
23.6
22.9
23.2
3.2
0.3
0.3
9.3
41.9
29.1
11.0
7.8
0.6
0.1
0.1
3.4
24.8
22.5
14.2
17.9
14.1
3.0
Mean age
33.8
33.7
35.5
31.0
37.9
Total (No.)
(%)
Brides
173,065
100.00
124,665
100.00
31,353
100.00
16,600
100.00
447
100.00
-20
20-24
25-29
30-34
35-39
40-49
50-59
60+
6.0
26.6
37.2
16.4
6.8
5.5
1.2
0.3
4.3
25.3
42.5
16.7
5.5
4.3
1.1
0.3
0.4
26.6
24.6
19.2
14.4
12.4
2.2
0.2
29.4
36.9
21.4
8.4
2.5
1.3
0.2
0.0
2.0
20.8
41.6
22.4
6.3
4.7
2.0
0.2
Mean age
28.4
28.3
31.3
23.6
29.4
Total (No.)
(%)
22
Table 5: Percentage Distribution of Age Difference between
Grooms and Brides by Nationality of Brides in 2001
Age
Difference
Nationality of Brides
Taiwan
China
SE Asia
-1
0-4
5-9
10-14
15-19
20-29
30-39
40+
13.0
56.7
22.2
5.0
1.7
1.0
0.3
0.1
4.2
16.4
24.0
22.0
13.9
13.1
5.2
1.2
3.6
9.1
20.3
28.2
23.0
13.5
1.8
0.6
All
100.0
100.0
100.0
Sources: Department of Population, Ministry of the Interior.
23
Table 6: Educational Composition of Grooms and Brides
Married in 2003 by Nationality
Education
Total
Taiwan
China
SE Asia
Others
Male
Total (No.) 173,065
(%)
100.0
167,160
100.0
3,073
100.0
1,081
100.0
1,751
100.0
17.5
15.7
34.1
22.7
10.0
17.8
16.2
34.6
22.0
9.4
2.8
1.5
24.4
47.2
24.1
7.3
1.5
19.6
43.4
28.2
19.7
2.2
14.5
38.7
25.0
University +
College
Sr. High
Jr. High
Elementary -
Female
Total (No.) 173,065
(%)
100.0
124,665
100.0
31,353
100.0
16,600
100.0
447
100.0
14.7
17.3
33.8
23.0
11.1
19.3
23.1
37.5
14.9
5.2
1.7
3.4
26.1
43.7
25.1
4.8
0.5
20.9
45.0
28.9
22.6
5.4
23.9
27.7
20.4
University +
College
Sr. High
Jr. High
Elementary -
Sources: Department of Population, Ministry of the Interior.
24
25
Table 7: Spatial Distribution of Foreign Brides and Their Proportions
in All Marriages by Place of Origin, in 2003
All
Marriages
(1)
Unit
Total
Total
No.
As %
of (1)
Place of Origin
China
No.
As %
of (1)
Others Nations
No.
As %
of (1)
171,483
48,633
28.4
31,784
18.5
16,849
9.8
76,513
18,180
3,227
2,968
29,620
3,237
15,463
3,818
20,675
4,411
1,145
645
8,234
833
4,389
968
27.0
24.4
35.5
21.7
27.8
25.7
28.4
25.4
13,744
3,255
883
382
5,487
467
2,768
502
18.0
17.9
25.8
12.9
18.5
14.4
17.9
13.2
6,931
1,156
312
263
2,747
366
1,621
466
9.1
6.4
9.7
8.9
9.3
11.3
36.9
12.2
Central Region
40,407
Taichung City
6,969
Miaoli County
4,265
Taichung County 10,842
Changhua County 8,981
Nantou County
3,889
Yunlin County
5,461
10,523
1,843
1,275
2,581
1,997
1,098
1,729
26.0
26.5
29.9
23.8
22.2
28.2
31.7
5,904
1,363
655
1,456
946
585
899
14.6
19.6
15.4
13.4
10.5
15.0
16.5
4,619
480
620
1,125
1,051
513
830
11.4
6.9
14.5
10.4
11.7
13.2
15.2
Southern Region
Kaohsiung City
Chiayi City
Tainan City
Chiayi County
Tainan County
Kaohsiung County
Pingtung County
Penghu County
48,143
11,527
1,836
5,089
4,186
7,733
10,027
7,112
633
14,884
3,659
482
1,186
1,328
2,324
3,290
2,455
160
30.9
31.7
26.3
23.3
31.7
30.1
32.8
34.5
25.3
10,103
2,860
326
814
726
1,431
2,357
1,544
45
21.0
24.8
17.8
16.0
17.3
18.5
23.5
21.7
7.1
4,781
799
156
372
602
893
933
911
115
9.9
6.9
8.5
7.3
14.4
11.6
9.3
12.8
18.2
5,949
2,364
39.7
1,864
31.3
500
8.4
Northern Region
Taipei City
Keelung City
Hsinchu City
Taipei County
Yilan County
Taoyuan County
Hsinchu County
Eastern Region
26
Table 8: Number of Foreign Spouses from Southeast Asia, Japan and U.S.A
by Sex , End of 2003
Nationality
Whole world
Sex
Both
Male
85,721
7,330
Female
78,391
%
Female
91.4
SE Asia (LDC)
Vietnam
Indonesia
Thailand
Philippines
Cambodia
Myanmar
78,199
52,173
11,648
7,143
3,945
2,654
636
3,287
107
265
2,457
322
5
131
75,094
52,066
11,383
4,868
3,623
2,649
505
96.0
99.8
97.7
68.2
91.8
99.8
79.4
SE Asia (MDC)
Malaysia
Singapore
1,564
1,272
292
636
516
120
928
756
172
59.3
59.4
58.9
Japan
USA
2,045
1,117
870
792
1,175
325
57.5
29.1
Source: Department of Population, Ministry of the Interior, Taipei, Taiwan.
27