Brides for Sale: Cross-Border Marriages and Female Immigration

Daiji Kawaguchi and Soohyung Lee

No 6458, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Every year, a large number of women immigrate as brides from developing countries to developed countries in East Asia. This phenomenon virtually did not exist in the early 1990s, but foreign brides currently comprise 4 to 35 percent of newlyweds in these developed Asian countries. This paper argues that two factors account for this rapid increase in "bride importation": the rapid growth of women's educational attainment and a cultural norm that leads to a low net surplus of marriage for educated women. We provide empirical evidence supporting our theoretical model and its implications, using datasets from Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan.

Keywords: immigration; marriage; sex ratio imbalance; international marriages; cross-border marriages; assortative matching (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A12 J12 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2012-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-mig and nep-sea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Published - published in: Economic Inquiry, 55, 633-654.

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Related works:
Journal Article: BRIDES FOR SALE: CROSS-BORDER MARRIAGES AND FEMALE IMMIGRATION (2017)
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