Why Do (even) immigrant women in south korea exhibit depressed fertility? Investigating the fertility of commodified marriage migrants

Jiseon Baek and D. Susie Lee
Additional contact information
Jiseon Baek: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
D. Susie Lee: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany

No WP-2026-039, MPIDR Working Papers from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany

Abstract: Fertility of immigrant women has often been framed as a remedy for declining birth rates and population ageing in some high-income countries with low fertility rates. South Korea, for example, has attracted immigrant women to form families with South Korean men – often through a commodified process involving broker agencies – resulting in older native men matching with younger Southeast Asian women. Yet, immigrant women in South Korea have shown fertility rates that are either similar to or lower than those of native Korean women. To explain this unexpectedly low trend, this study 1) describes sociodemographic characteristics of immigrant women in commodified marriages, 2) quantifies their first and second birth risks, and 3) tests if a large spousal age gap explains the lower fertility outcomes. Event-history analyses were conducted based on the samples derived from National Survey of Multicultural Families and the National Survey on Fertility, Family Health, and Welfare. Findings indicate that commodified marriage migrant women display an accelerated transition to a first birth, but show depressed rates for second births, compared to other migrant women. Furthermore, the relative older age of husband appears as a condition that deters fertility progression. These findings suggest that structural barriers, including large spousal age gaps and multidimensional disadvantages, may constrain these women’s family-building prospects.

Keywords: Korea; South; fertility; immigrants (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 Z0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47 pages
Date: 2026
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-mig and nep-sea
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2026-039.pdf (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2026-039

DOI: 10.4054/MPIDR-WP-2026-039

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPIDR Working Papers from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Wilhelm ().