WATERING THE NEIGHBOUR'S GARDEN: THE GROWING - CICRED

MARRIAGE MIGRATION BETWEEN VIETNAM AND TAIWAN…
was opened to a wide array of outside influences. However the gap
between rich and poor and between rural and urban areas widened and
as a result there was an acceleration of rural and urban migration and
contract labour migration overseas. Another dimension of the increase
in population mobility has been an increase in the incidence of international
marriage migration since the mid 1990s.
The massive increase in mobility in Asia (Hugo, 2005) has provided
ample opportunity for international marriage with millions of
young single Asians moving as students, tourists, unskilled labour
migrants, business people and skilled migrants between nations
(Cottrell, 1990). However migration for the express purpose of marriage
has also increased massively in the region. Notwithstanding that,
Piper (2003) has persuasively argued that international migration for
work and international migration for marriage are strongly inter-related
and cannot be regarded as discrete categories. It is possible to identify a
specific type of marriage migration involving the selection of international
brides through agencies (Piper and Roces, 2003). Hence, in 2004
the number of South Korean men who married foreign women hit
25,594, more than twice the figure for 2002 of 11,017 (Asian Migration
News, 15-31 January 2006), the majority being arranged marriages. The
number of foreigners moving to Korea increased by 36 percent from
44,416 in December 2003 to 60,214 in February 2005 (Asian Migration
News, 15-31 March 2005). In 2003 one in twelve marriages in South
Korea was international with most brides coming from other Asian
countries (Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipinos, Thais and Mongolians).
3 One in four Korean men in rural areas marrying in 2004 took a
foreign bride–of the total of 1,814–879 from China, 560 from Vietnam,
195 from the Philippines and the others from Mongolia, Thailand
and Uzbekistan. 4 On the other hand, in 2003 some 6,444 Korean
women married foreign men including 2,613 Japanese, 1,237 Americans
and 1,199 Chinese. 5 There also has been significant marriage
migration to Japan (Piper, 1999). The numbers of foreign spouses and
children of Japanese in 2004 was 257,292 (Iguchi, 2006).
2.1. Marriage migration to Taiwan
While marriage migration is becoming more significant in several
Asian nations, no country has been more influenced by the phenomenon
than Taiwan. Table 1 draws together data from several sources
3 Asian Migration News, 16-30 September 2004.
4 Asian Migration News, 16-30 June 2005.
5 Asian Migration News, 15-31 January 2005.
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