Marital Stability of Transnational Couples and Chinese Bride Interview Policy: Evidence from Taiwan

Abstract

Many East Asian countries now have a large number of marriage migrants. Empirical evidence from Western countries shows lower marital stability among transnational and interracial couples, while research in non-Western contexts is still limited. The number of international marriages in Taiwan reached its peak in 2003: there was one foreign spouse out of four couples. Most of the foreign spouses came from China, Vietnam, and other Southeast Asian countries. To prevent illegal activities through sham marriages, the Taiwanese government started to conduct interviews for foreign brides from China in 2003. This policy creates a unique opportunity to examine the effect of interviews in contrast to foreign brides from Southeast Asia who always had interviews. By combining three administrative datasets, we study 1.7 million observations and find that getting married at a later age, having children, and having higher education are associated with higher marital stability. Chinese wives have the lowest marital stability compared with natives and wives from other countries. Estimation results show that the interview policy may have improved the marital quality of Taiwanese husbands and Chinese wives by decreasing the divorce rate and increasing the duration of marriage.

Keywords: Transnational Couple. Sham Marriage. Marital Stability. Policy Evaluation.