Brides for Sale: Cross-Border Marriages and Female Immigration

37 Pages Posted: 14 Mar 2012 Last revised: 29 Mar 2012

See all articles by Daiji Kawaguchi

Daiji Kawaguchi

University of Tokyo - Graduate School of Economics; IZA

Soohyung Lee

University of Maryland - Department of Economics

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: March 13, 2012

Abstract

Every year, a large number of women migrate 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 low net surplus of marriage for educated women. We provide empirical evidence supporting our theoretical model and its implications, using datasets from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore.

Keywords: Immigration, Marriage, Sex Ratio Imbalance, International Marriages, Cross- border marriages, Assortative Matching

JEL Classification: A12, J12, J61

Suggested Citation

Kawaguchi, Daiji and Lee, Soohyung, Brides for Sale: Cross-Border Marriages and Female Immigration (March 13, 2012). Harvard Business School Research Paper No. 12-082, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2020875 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2020875

Daiji Kawaguchi

University of Tokyo - Graduate School of Economics ( email )

Tokyo
Japan

IZA

Soohyung Lee (Contact Author)

University of Maryland - Department of Economics ( email )

College Park, MD 20742
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.soohyunglee.com

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