Marriage migration, transnational couples and their families

Migration is a stressful life event that may be negatively related to subsequent marital stability. This holds for international migration in particular, and crude divorce statistics often reveal elevated levels of union disruption for immigrants in developed countries. However, while the relationship between migration and other vital events like fertility and mortality have been studied in great depth, there is still a lack of longitudinal analyses of the divorce dynamics of international migrants. In the present study, we improve on this situation by investigating the divorce risks of migrants to Sweden subsequent to their immigration. The study involves those that were married at migration and those that married in the new country. We test various hypotheses of disruption, adaptation and selection to explain the elevated divorce risks. Our study is based on data on the entire resident population of Sweden and we cover the most common immigrant groups in Sweden.

The transformative nature of migration on families, and in particular, on couples, is well-documented. During the post-migration period, couples re-negotiate household responsibilities within a cultural and structural context. In this paper, we focus on the effect of migration on the gendered nature of domestic labour examining changes in four areas (chores, finances, maintenance and childcare). Our sample includes transnational and intact migrant Korean couples using data from the Toronto Korean Families Study – 2011 Survey. Preliminary results show that prior to migration, couples were similar in the allocation of household responsibilities. However, after migration there were significant differences between the two types of couples with intact migrant couples following a less gendered form of household organization.

Using data from “Youth in India Situation and Needs 2006-07” this paper examines the how women agency differs among married and unmarried women. Agency is measured in the domain of freedom of movement, decision making and self efficacy. Marriage process analysis examines the mean age when do you want marry, preference of marriage opinion about marriage, and approval of spouse selection. Bi-variate analysis, Principal Component Analysis and multinomial logistic regression are used to understand the differential in women agency and marriage process young involvement in India. Findings indicate that women’s agency varies largely by socio-economic attributes irrespective of marital status. Agency is high those who are in the better position regarding educational attainment, economic status and exposure to mass media. Women who are belonging in rural areas they have less women’s agency compared to urban areas. Preference of mean age at marriage in urban areas is 22 years among unmarried women where as 20 years among in the areas. 13% women wish to preference for love marriage in urban areas where as one tenth of rural areas.

Migration is a key component to reduce fertility level and improve the socio-economic status, reproductive knowledge and behaviour. However in developing countries migration is mainly induced by poverty. Study explore whether male migrants have better reproductive health knowledge and practices compared to non-migrants. Using data from NFHS-3 (2005-06) we have restricted our study to male population aged 15-54 years who are currently married and have at least one child. Bivariate and Multivariate technique analysed that relatively recent migrant (staying less than10 years) married male have better knowledge compared to non-migrant in terms of ovulatory cycle, modern methods of contraception, drinking pattern of water, place of birth. Result shows two fifth of recent migrant have correct knowledge of ovulatory cycle compared to 17% non- migrant. However migrants staying more than 10 years are even poorer than non migrant. Completed more than secondary schooling, belonging richest quintile have better reproductive knowledge

In this paper we analyze the role of migration in partnership formation among Senegalese individuals. We use data from the survey «Migrations between Africa and Europe» (MAFE-Senegal) and event history models to examine differences concerning the timing of entry into first partnership by gender and migration status (non-migrants, migrants in EU, returnees from EU, migrants in other countries, and returnees from other countries). Our preliminary results indicate that being a migrant in France, Italy or Spain significantly increases the chances of entering into first partnership, for both men and women. For women, this is especially visible the year of their migration, which clearly points to the increasing phenomenon of marriage migration also among Senegalese migrants. Furthermore, the results show that education and socio-economic status are clearly linked to the propensity to enter a first partnership transnationally, but this effect differs by gender.

Possibilities for migrant couples to migrate together or to reunify in destination countries are increasingly limited as family reunification and migration laws are becoming more stringent. Consequently, there is an increase in transnational couples, whereby one of the spouses is living in a different country. Yet, little is known about the dynamics of transnational marriages and to what extent couples reunify. Additionally, it is commonly assumed that reunification takes place at destination, disregarding cases where reunification takes place at origin. This paper addresses these gaps by focusing on Ghanaian couples with migration experience using a multi-sited research design.
Different trajectories of couples’ marital and migration histories are analysed using sequential analysis. We examine whether variation in trajectories is associated with migration-related variables, such as destination or period of migration, focusing on couples that have experienced ‘living-apart-together’. Secondly, we distinguish between reunification at destination and at origin and examine which factors influence reunification in these two settings. We use discrete-time event-history analyses, applying a comparative risks approach. Data from the MAfE-Ghana project on Ghanaian migrants is used (N=741).

A number of researchers have discussed the pattern of marriage migration as a function of distance. Recently, the functional relationship of distance with marriage migration to Bangladesh data was found satisfactorily well through a polynomial model. The aim of this paper is to test the suitability of this polynomial model on Indian data, collected from the Hindu dominated rural areas at different time periods i.e., in 1978, 1984 and 2002. It is observed that marriage field associated with distance has increased over the last two-three decades. Polynomial model of third degree fitted to the distribution of distance associated with marriage migration to different set of rural Indian data, was found that the model fits the data satisfactorily well only, if distance associated with marriage migration i.e. marriage field is standardised. That is, a polynomial model approximates the distribution of distance associated with marriage migration satisfactorily well whether it is from a Hindu society or from a Muslim if grouping of the distance is standardised. It means the class intervals of the distance associated with marriage plays a major role in the fitting of a polynomial model.

The changes in religious composition in Austria since 1970 have important consequences on intergroup relationships and family formation. Using data from the 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001 Population Censuses, this paper investigates trends and determinants of religious intermarriage in Austria. The major questions are: 1) whether religious homogamy has declined over time given the secularizing trend and how this temporal process differs by gender, religious denomination, and geographical region; 2) whether religious homogamy intersects with assortative mating along other dimensions e.g. education and migration status; and 3) what individual and contextual factors explain religious intermarriage. Overall, we find that between 1971-2001, religious intermarriage has been increasing in Austria, especially among Roman Catholics and Protestants, women, and people residing in Vienna. Moreover, we find no evidence that religious homogamy can be explained by assortative mating along other dimensions i.e. couples with the same level of education or migration status do not necessarily have higher rates of religious homogamy. Finally, individuals in younger birth cohorts, with higher educational attainment, living in a residential area, with high composition of out-group religious members have higher propensity to be in interreligious marriage.

Since 2001, Vietnamese brides account for almost half of the foreign brides in Taiwan. In 2006, Vietnamese brides accounted for 85 percent of total 11,973 persons becoming Taiwanese citizens with an additional 1,000 new brides each year. This study provides an overview of characteristics of Vietnamese brides as well as factors affecting their decision to marry with Taiwanese. The study is conducted in Mekong River Delta – the main source of Vietnamese brides to Taiwan Research findings reveal a big gap in age between brides and blooms i.e. 13 year, relative low educations and lower economic conditions. The marriages are in many cases arranged by marriage agencies with average time to official marriage ceremony is only 3.5 days. Marriage decision is decided by the brides themselves (40%), parents (34%) and jointly (24%). Economic reason plays an important role in making marriage decision in the forms of willingness to help families or the brides themselves want to have opportunity to change their lives, to stay in a foreign country, etc. Public attitude towards this marriage phenomenon also change over time from against the marriage to understanding and then somewhat agree with the Vietnamese brides.

This paper investigates the distribution of distance associated with marriage migration in the flood prone area of North-Eastern Bihar, India and an effort has been made to fit some mathematical model to marriage migration associated with distance. The survey was conducted during October 2009 to March 2010 on 664 households and data was collected from 930 married women. A well known mathematical model proposed by Morril & Pits has been applied on the data to check its suitability and a probability model (Weibull distribution) has been used to explain the phenomenon and found that both the model explains distance associated marriage migration.