2012 Reports

Brides for Sale: Cross-Border Marriages and Female Immigration

Kawaguchi, Daiji; Lee, Soohyung

Developed East Asian countries import a large number of women from abroad as brides every year, although such cross-border marriages virtually did not exist 20 years ago. With a theoretical framework and empirical evidence, we argue that developed Asian countries’ demand for foreign brides is the result of rapid improvement in women’s economic status and persistency in household arrangements that insufficiently incorporate women’s improved status in marriage. Our analyses show how a country’s marriage-market imbalance has been transmitted globally, which may be useful to understand the global implications of an increasing sex-ratio imbalance in China.