Ethnic diversity and statistics in East Asia: ‘foreign brides’ surveys in Taiwan and South Korea

Abstract

East Asian nations have become increasingly diverse in their ethnic composition since the 1990s. A large proportion of recent immigrants consists of women from China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines, who migrated following their marriage to male citizens from South Korea and Taiwan. To study this new group of foreign residents, the governments of both Taiwan and South Korea have conducted national surveys since 2000. This paper conducts a content analysis of the questions of these surveys to elaborate a criticism of the ethnic statistics produced from them. These surveys provide relevant information on this group of new residents, but they also have the potential to reinforce existing negative stereotypes due to prior assumptions that shaped the content of questionnaires. The analysis reveals that the production of statistics on migrants is influenced by three ideologies: assimilation, patriarchy and nationalism.

Keywords:

• Ethnic statistics
• female migrants
• marriage
• surveys
• Taiwan
• South Korea

Acknowledgements

A previous version of this paper was presented at the International Conference on Social Statistics and Ethnic Diversity held in Montreal, December 5–8, 2007, organized by the Quebec Inter-University Center for Social Statistics. We thank Victor Piché, Alan Simmons and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. We also thank Belinda Hammoud for research assistance and Gale Cassidy for editing. The Social Science and Humanities Research Council, the International Development Research Center of Canada, and the National Policy Research Centre at National Sun Yat-sen University of Taiwan provided funding for research related to this paper.

Notes

1. In this respect, Taiwan differs from South Korea, since it has an aboriginal population which makes a country's population more diverse. Taiwan's recent discourse on multiculturalism does not include recent migrants from Southeast Asia (Wang Li-Jung 2007).

2. These two types of migration are generally treated separately in research, but, in reality, they are intertwined and related, as argued by Piper and Roces (2003) and Lan (2008). Immigrant spouses are also workers (paid or unpaid) in their country of destination, and some contract workers eventually settle permanently through marriage to a national of the host country. In Taiwan and South Korea, labour migrants and immigrant spouses may interact and form a new ethnic community. Some immigrant spouses in Taiwan and South Korea, for instance, open ethnic businesses that serve migrant workers from their country of origin (Lee et al. 2006, pp. 290–1).

3. In Taiwan's recent ‘White paper on Migration’, the government has explicitly excluded the possibility of blue-collar migrant workers settling permanently, while it has devoted a great part of the research to ‘how to attract high quality human resources to settle permanently in Taiwan’. See Tsai (2007). Interestingly, this recommendation is not consistent with Taiwan's need for cheap labour.

4. Those already naturalized (50,409) were not counted (Korea Immigration Policy Committee 2009).

5. This number did not include 17,563 industrial trainees.

6. In the case of Taiwan, the issue of ‘population quality’ is raised in various ways. Government officials make statements on the importance of maintaining this quality for the future competitiveness of the country. For examples, see Wang and Bélanger (2008).

7. Until December 2002, migrant workers were prohibited by law from working in the service industry. Since 2002, the Korean government has allowed ethnic Koreans to obtain employment in certain service sectors, including domestic work. This ‘Employment Management Program’ was further improved and became the ‘Visit and Employment Program’ in March 2007.

8. In February 2008 this role was taken over by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Family Affairs.

9. It is also the case for the way they are portrayed in Vietnamese media (see Bélanger, Khuat and Wang 2007).

10. A detailed discussion of this debate between some feminist groups and scholars can be accessed at ‘Wuneng queyao jinhun de guodu’ (‘An impotent state prohibits cross-border marriage’), http://blog.yam.com/hongzen63/article/8689291

11. On the Taiwanese questionnaire, a red-inked mark appears that defines ‘developmentally retarded children’ as ‘children under the age of six who suffer from deviant development and need early treatment’.