WATERING THE NEIGHBOUR'S GARDEN: THE GROWING - CICRED

MARRIAGE MIGRATION BETWEEN VIETNAM AND TAIWAN…
well off categories. It is apparent that in most cases, economic conditions
in households improved after migration. Some 72.4 percent of
households reported that they moved up at least one category as a
result of the migration while 25.7 percent remained in the same category.
Figure 6 shows that 45.7 percent of households were lifted from
poor to average economic status and a third (32.6 percent) were lifted
from poor or average to above average status.
Figure 6 Living standards of households before and after their daughters’
marriage, 2004
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
126
Source: NUH, 2004.
7
261
52
191
Very poor Poor Average Above average Rich
272
43
238
10
Before
marriage
After
marriage
The survey also showed that before the marriage 126 households
were very poor and 261 were poor; however, only 7 households were
very poor and 52 were poor after migration. This change is clearly
visible to the people in the community. Indeed in focus group discussions
all agreed that the families having Taiwanese sons-in-law had
become better off and many of them “had become rich”.
“We see that the families, having daughters getting married to
Taiwan males, all have built two, three story houses. They are
very happy and enjoy life, they do not have to do hard work because
their daughters send money to them very often. Even
some of them help poor neighbours and poorer people in the
communities” (a discussion in An Giang province).
One parent of a bride said:
“Before my daughter’s marriage, all members of our family were
forced to work very hard, we did a day labour with very low pay
so we used to be short of money. But now our lives have
changed because my daughter often sends back money. With
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