Danièle Bélanger

The impact of transnational migration on gender and marriage in sending communities of Vietnam

The recent, rapid increase in cross-border marriages between women from Southeast Asia and men from East Asia is creating a new international migration flow of ‘marriage migrants’ in the region. This article documents how marriage migration reconfigures gender power relations in three migrant-sending communities in Southern Vietnam. Analyses of data collected in 2007 indicate changes in the status of daughters and sons and a significant transformation of the marriage market. Emigrant daughters experienced enhanced status and power at home, mostly through remittances, to the extent that villagers expressed an increased preference for having girls rather than boys. Young women’s emigration has created a skewed marriage market, which gives village women and their families more bargaining power in marriage transactions. Getting married is difficult for many single men in the village due to the perceived greater value of foreign men, higher bride-prices and a shortage of potential brides. Overall, villagers view marriage migration as contributing to significant social transformations with respect to gender and power relations in households and in the marriage market.

Taiwanizing female immigrant spouses and materializing differential citizenship

Taiwan holds the Asian record for the proportion of families that involve so-called ‘foreign brides’. Marriage migration has brought close to half a million immigrant spouses into the country over the past decades. Most of these women come from Mainland China, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. This paper discusses how the Taiwanese state and society have actively pursued the integration of immigrant spouses since 2002, with a set of policies that acknowledge the massive migration of ‘foreign brides’ and the impact of this phenomenon on society. It argues that the attempt to integrate new immigrants is fraught with a discourse that serves to further stigmatize these women, discriminate against them, and, therefore, create an ‘Other’ that is used to erect the ideology of nation-building in Taiwan. The paper provides a critical analysis of policies, academic discourse and NGOs fundraising strategies to show how these institutions reinforce the idea that immigrant spouses are problematic and, therefore, need to be ‘Taiwanized’. This results in a system of differential legal and social citizenship in which immigrant spouses are at the bottom of the social hierarchy in Taiwanese society.

Single women's experiences of sexual relationships and abortion in Hanoi, Vietnam

Abstract This article explores the circumstances of premarital sexuality, unwanted pregnancies, and abortion among single women in Vietnam. Twenty in-depth interviews were conducted with single women who had an abortion in the Hanoi region in 1996. Participants were contacted through two health centres providing abortion services. Results show that women have sex in the context of committed relationships and view sexual relationships as part of courtship and dating. Only half of the women reported attempts to use a contraceptive method, though none of them wanted to become pregnant. Lack of knowledge and the belief that contraceptives are for married couples were among the reasons given for not seeking the means to prevent pregnancy. Eight of the women interviewed had had more than one abortion. Most of the women had abortions because they could not or chose not to marry. Single women who wish to avoid unwanted pregnancy need access to contraceptive counselling and services. Gender awareness debates among youth could help to encourage joint and equal responsibility for these matters.

Are Sex Ratios at Birth Increasing in Vietnam

Une faible fecondite et une preference pour les garcons sont a l’origine des taux eleves de masculinite a la naissance constates en Inde, en Coree du Sud et en Chine. Dans cet article, nous nous interessons aux rapports de masculinite a la naissance calcules a partir des recensements effectues en 1989 et 1999 au Vietnam, des statistiques obtenues aupres d’hopitaux a Hanoi et a Ho Chi Minh-Ville et dans l’Enquete sur les niveaux de vie au Vietnam realisee en 1997-1998.D’une maniere generale, les donnees des recensements ne font apparaitre aucune progression des rapports de masculinite a la naissance. En revanche, les donnees hospitalieres de 2001 ventilees par rang de naissance indiquent une augmentation des rapports de masculinite a la naissance selon le rang de naissance, s’agissant des naissances survenues a l’hopital de Hanoi, ce qui n’est pas le cas a Ho Chi Minh-Ville. Les donnees fournies par l’Enquete de 1997-1998 sur les niveaux de vie au Vietnam indiquent que la proportion de garcons est generalement plus forte chez les enfants de rang de naissance eleve. L’article discute des facteurs susceptibles d’expliquer ces constatations.

Marriage migrants as emigrants : remittances of marriage migrant women from Vietnam to their natal families

This article examines the emigration dimension of marriage migration in Asia by focusing on remittances received by parents from daughters who married and migrated abroad. Based on a study of 250 migrant-sending households in Vietnam with a daughter living in an Asian country as a ‘foreign wife’, the analysis provides empirical evidence that emigrant spouses make substantial financial contributions to their natal families through remittances. A multivariate analysis of the determinants of remittance-sending shows that a womans characteristics and living conditions abroad largely determine whether or not she remits, while the relative poverty level of her natal family has limited influence. Findings call for a broader conceptualization of ‘women who marry foreigners’ or ‘foreign brides’ as emigrants who contribute to the social development of their sending countries.

Migrating against all the odds: International labour migration of Bangladeshi women

Of all temporary unskilled migrant workers who originated from Bangladesh in 2010, women accounted for less than 3%. This extremely low proportion of women results from the numerous sociocultural, religious and political barriers women labour migrants encounter. Based on 23 in-depth interviews collected in 2009 in Bangladesh with former migrant domestic workers who worked in the Gulf region, the article argues that women actively negotiate these barriers prior to going abroad and upon return. Using a micro-sociological perspective of gender and family relations, the article shows that, depending on women’s family situation and relationships, they were more or less at risk of suffering stigma in the pre-departure and return stages of temporary labour migration. The article builds on a solid body of research that examines how international labour migration challenges the global and local patriarchal gender order. The findings show how international migration of women may unsettle the patriarchal gender order, but can also serve to further subordinate women after they return home.

Negotiating the Social Family: Migrant Live-in Elder Care-workers in Taiwan

Abstract In response to difficulties faced by families in caring for the aged, the government of Taiwan launched a foreign live-in caregiver programme in 1992. This paper draws upon literature on family, domestic work and motives for caregiving to examine how the long-term co-residence of migrant live-in elder care-workers reconfigures Taiwanese families. Our analysis, based on in-depth interviews conducted in the summer of 2009 with 20 Vietnamese migrant live-in care-workers, uses the concept of ‘social family’ to document the close emotional and quasi-familial relationships between foreign care-workers and members of Taiwanese families. Narratives shed light on the dynamics of these relationships and show the limitations of the concept. The inherent asymmetrical employer-employee power relationship remains, while workers constantly negotiate contradictory feelings and positions in the intimate sphere of the employers’ private homes. This paper emphasizes the mutual dependency that migrants experience as both workers and members of a new family. Rather than being seen as cheap, disposable labour, migrants become indispensable to the families. It is this dependency and intimacy that make them part of the family, but also continues to make them vulnerable to abuse.

Second-trimester abortions and sex-selection of children in Hanoi, Vietnam

Because sex-selective abortions are generally conducted during the second term of the pregnancy, timing of abortion can be used as an indirect way of studying sex-selection by abortion. We examined the likelihood of having a first-trimester vs. second-trimester abortion among a group of 885 married women who had an abortion in an obstetric hospital in Hanoi in 2003. In the absence of sex-selection by abortion, the number and sex of living children should not affect the timing of abortion. Results indicate that women with more children, particularly those with more daughters or without a son, were more likely to undergo a second-term abortion than a first-term abortion. We estimate that, in 2003, 2 per cent of all abortions to women with at least one living child were intended to avoid the birth of a female.

Transnationalism from Below: Evidence from Vietnam-Taiwan Cross-Border Marriages

This paper examines marriage migration in Asia through the lens of transnationalism. We pull together results from various studies we conducted on marriage migration in Vietnam and Taiwan between 2004 and 2010, using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Our main contention is that marriage migration constitutes a significant vector of social change for both sending and receiving areas of migrants. We examine the gendered aspects of this transformation, since the vast majority of migrant spouses in Asia are women. We use the concept of ‘transnationalism from below’ to frame the social impact of marriage migration. In this paper, we first review activities of marriage migrants and their families that constitute either economic or social transnationalism. In the second part, we discuss how these transnational activities contribute to social change in both societies. In brief, the paper shows the far-reaching significance of this migration flow for the region and aims to move forward the conceptualization of marriage migration in Asia.

Indispensable Sons: Negotiating reproductive desires in rural Vietnam

The decline in fertility that has taken place in most countries of Asia over the past few decades has presented a challenge to demographic theory. While most families have shrunk considerably in size and the desire for only a few children is shared by most, the importance of producing a male child has persisted in some regions and strata of many Asian societies. The clash between the desire for only a few children and for a male child causes many individuals to experience conflicting reproductive aspirations, particularly women, who are generally held responsible for the sex of their children and whose status depends on their production of male heirs. Based on ethnographic material, I document the different strategies women in rural northern Vietnam use throughout their reproductive years in their quest to have a son. I discuss the construction of reproductive desires with special attention to the need for a son, as such need was the most central element of discourses on reproductive desire in the narratives collected. The article also elaborates on how women maneuver to negotiate these desires between different scales: the local, particularly family, kin and community members; the national, more specifically Vietnams two-child family planning policy; and the global, with its notions of a good family and of ‘good quality’ children. Hijos Indispensables: Negociando los deseos reproductivos en Vietnam rural La disminución de fertilidad que ha ocurrido en la mayor parte de países asiáticos durante las últimas tres décadas ha planteado un desafió a la teoría demográfica. Mientras que la mayoría de familias se ha reducido el tamaño y desean menos hijos, en algunos regiones y estratos de las sociedades asiáticas la importancia de producir un niño masculino ha persistido. El choque entre el deseo de tener menos hijos y un niño masculino resulta en que muchos individuos tengan aspiraciones contradictorias de reproducción, en particular las mujeres quien se responsabilizan generalmente del sexo de sus hijos y también quien depende en la producción de herederos masculinos para su posición social. Haciendo uso de material etnográfica, documento las estrategias distintas que utilizan las mujeres del campo de Vietnam del Norte en sus búsquedas de tener un hijo durante sus años reproductivos. Discuto la construcción de deseos reproductivos, fijándose en la necesidad de un hijo, ya que aquella necesidad era el elemento más central de los discursos de deseos reproductivos en las narraciones recopiladas. Este artículo elabora también en cómo las mujeres manejan negociar estos deseos entre diferentes escalas: la local, especialmente la familia, parientes, y miembros de la comunidad; la nacional, mas específico, la política vietnamesa de dos hijos por familia; y el global, con sus ideas de la familia buena y de niños ‘bien educados’.