GENDER AND THE REMITTANCE PROCESS

This study explores and suggests a methodological approach to the gender dimensions of remittances. It argues that remittances should be seen as a social process and examined in relation to (i) the sending side, (ii) the recipient side and (iii) gendered use of remittances by the households. Focusing on Indonesian domestic workers in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, and migrant households in Central Java, it explores the gender dimensions of remittance-sending, receiving, control and use, and their development implications. Despite their lower incomes, female domestic workers remit a greater share of their earnings than their male counterparts; they tend to remit to their mothers and sisters rather than to fathers, brothers and husbands. Close to half of the recipients exercise discretion over the use of remittances; female recipients tend to use remittances to invest in human capital and male recipients, in physical capital.     

MARRIAGE SQUEEZE IN CHINA'S FUTURE

The preference for sons in China and discrimination against girls have resulted in a male marriage squeeze. This paper develops two new indices of the sex ratio among potential first marriage partners by normalising first marriage frequencies and by eliminating the tempo effect in first marriage. Using two newly developed indices and two existing ones, the authors predict China's marriage squeeze for the period 2000–2100. The authors find that the new indices produce almost the same results as the existing ones when measuring the sex ratios of marriageable males to females. For the years 2015 to 2050, the sex ratio of potential males to females is over 1.15, and then fluctuates around 1.1 after 2060. From 2015 to 2045, China will face an annual surplus of one million males. However, if the high sex ratio at birth cannot be controlled, the male marriage squeeze will be much more severe.     

Trafficking in women? Or multicultural family? The contextual difference of commodification of intimacy

This article attempts to link commercially arranged cross-border marriages to the discussion of the commodification of intimacy and to explore how a transnational phenomenon is contextualized in national politics. The question of commodification – what can or cannot be assigned economic value – has been a contentious area of intersection between economics and ethics, and intimacy has often been at the heart of the recent debate on commodification. Yet, commercially arranged cross-border marriages are perceived differently in Vietnam, a country that sends brides, and in Korea, a country that receives brides. In Vietnam, cross-border marriage has been portrayed negatively and is often associated with trafficking in women. Although a similar discourse exists in Korea, the official discourse on cross-border marriage has focused on supporting multicultural families. The difference in discourse with respect to the same phenomenon suggests that the tension around commodification is not necessarily shaped uniformly across the national border. In this article, I juxtapose the contrasted discourses and policies on commercially arranged cross-border marriages in both countries and discuss the contexts that may have contributed to the difference in discourse. By doing this, I show that the global trend of commodification of intimacy and the cultural meaning of this phenomenon cannot be divorced from national politics.     

WOMEN AS SECONDARY EARNERS

This paper addresses the issue of the gender gap in young people's work preferences and intentions within the context of changing gender relations in urban Indonesia. A survey of senior university students in Jakarta and Makassar in 2004 provided evidence on the interplay between labour market and marriage role preferences among the young educated elite in Indonesia (n = 1761). Along with ongoing demographic transitions and socio-economic change, the study hypothesised that shifting gender norms have created a preference for a more egalitarian, dual-earner marriage among the target population. However, findings indicate that neo-traditional ideals placing men as the breadwinner and women as secondary earners are widely prevalent. Qualitative insights highlight how the universality of marriage and having children entail women to assume a role to satisfy increasing economic needs without relegating their noble role to maintain family harmony.     

CIVIL WAR,MARRIAGE BAN AND SEX RATIO

The civil war in mainland China during 1945–1949 resulted in an enormous influx of immigrants to Taiwan, the majority of whom were single male soldiers in their twenties or thirties. In addition, a military marriage ban prevented most of the immigrant soldiers from getting married until 1959. These two factors have profound, but distinct, influences on the effective prime-age sex ratio in the marriage market in post-war Taiwan. Unfortunately, the official population data in Taiwan excluded the military and thus did not reveal the true male population until the late 1960s. This paper proposes a method to impute the effective prime-age sex ratio. The imputation result shows that the effective prime-age sex ratio first rose in the 1950s, peaked in the 1960s, and then declined in the 1970s. At its peak, as many as 120 men were competing for only 100 women in the marriage market.     

‘Flying Fräuleins’: the construction of single migrant women in discourses on migration in Australia and West Germany in the 1950s and 1960s

The migration of single women of German descent to Australia in the 1950s and 1960s attracted attention from both sides of the world. A closer look at the historical records reveals contradictory opinions of officials from both countries towards the role and desirability of unmarried women as potential migrants. Widows, divorcees and women with dependants therefore faced difficulties in pursuing their aim of migration to Australia. However, many of them assessed available migration opportunities and proactively called upon innovative channels to continue their endeavours. The public construct of ‘the single woman’ neglected the existence of a broad spectrum of diverse female life models present in the early post-World War II German society and official policies refused to recognize the agency of these women. This article explores the diversity present in the lives of women that were interested in migrating to Australia, discloses the mechanisms behind the images propagated in public and analyzes the consequences of this for the women in question. The analysis will show that the migration agreement was deeply influenced by gendered notions of what constituted desirable and undesirable migration flows.     

MIGRATION AND REMITTANCES

This paper examines patterns of remittances among migrants from Guizhou province of China. Our research is motivated by three lines of theoretical arguments, namely the new economics of migration, a translocal perspective linking remittances and development, and the culture of remittances. Taking individual, household, and village-level characteristics into account, we estimated multilevel logistic models of the decision to remit and multilevel models of the amount of remittances. Our results show that migrant remittance behaviour is responsive to family needs as well as household economic position in the village. Migrants who come from entrepreneurial households are more likely to remit a large amount than other types of households. We find some evidence of ‘culture of remittances’ in these villages. Consistent with our expectations, migrants who are from villages with higher amounts of average remittances are likely to remit a larger amount than otherwise.     

Marriage Migration,Gender Transformations,and Family Values in the ‘Global Ecumene’

The metaphor of the market is a poor explanatory tool for the growth in international web-brokered marriages, between (mainly) men from rich countries and women from poor countries. States play an important role in regulating particular forms of migration including creating the ‘need’ for spousal migrants, as well as permitting their entry. The characterisation of the men who seek spouses through international agencies as powerful agents in the world system has to be mediated through understandings of the ways in which gender identities are not simple binaries that the contemporary global order is reproducing on an expanded scale. The characterisation of the women obscures the manner in which they are acting out of their own aspirations; and when a marriage is contracted, the man and woman enter into a personal relationship that cannot be reduced to a commodity exchange. These marriages involve people in negotiations about new forms of personal attachment involving intimacy, spousal roles and family relations. They are constitutive of the social networks of the ‘global ecumene’, a new kind of known world whose borders are constantly expanding. Gender relations are not constituted simply in the realm of the economic. We cannot assume family relations are merely expressions of dominant economic forms. The space of international web-brokered marriages is one in which women can be seen as active subjects in a transnational space that allows them to act outside, to certain degrees, of kinship-based power.     

OLDER-AGE PARENTS IN RURAL CAMBODIA AND MIGRATION OF ADULT CHILDREN

This study examines links between migration status and location of adult children and measures associated with the well-being of older parents. Data come from older adults born between 1940 and 1950 living in a region in northwest Cambodia near the Thai border with good access to Phnom Penh. Analyses are conducted from the perspectives of the older adult and adult children. Results show that high rates of out-migration do not leave their older parents without alternative means of support. Migrant children often remain in contact by telephone. Most adult children remit money to their parents, but the majority of remittances are small. While large remittances are atypical, adult children living in Phnom Penh or across the border in Thailand are more likely to provide substantial amounts. The analysis presents a picture of an area where people are on the move but families still share resources and time with older adults.     

Lost boys,invisible girls: stories of Sudanese marriages across borders

Forced migration challenges and changes gender relations. The transnational activities of refugees resettled in the West create gender asymmetries among those who stay behind. This article explores the transnational marriages of young southern Sudanese women (‘invisible girls’), who either stayed in Sudan or remained in refugee camps in Kenya, to Sudanese men who were resettled to America, Canada or Australia (‘lost boys’). Incorporating gender as a relational category into the analysis of transnational practices that migrants and refugees engage in is important. The article argues that there is a need to put feminist analysis at the centre of transnational processes resulting from (forced) migration. It looks at the connections between different geographical locations, the impacts of the migration of young refugee men on bridewealth and marriage negotiations and the gender consequences for young women, men and their families. It is argued that transnational activities, such as marriage, contest, reconfigure and reinforce the culturally inscribed gender norms and practices in and across places. Transnational marriage results in ambiguous benefits for women (and men) in accessing greater freedoms. Anthropological analyses of marriage need a geographical focus on the transnational fields in which they occur. The article seeks to deepen understanding of the nuanced gendered consequences of transnationalism. It shows how gender analysis of actions taken across different locations can contribute to the theorisation of transnational studies of refugees and migrants.     

MIGRATION AND THE WELL-BEING OF THE ‘LEFT BEHIND’ IN ASIA

This paper serves as an introduction to the three substantive papers in this themed section on the impact of migration on the well-being of the ‘left behind’ in Asia. In the light of recent migration trends such as the ‘feminization’ of migration and ‘brain-drain’ of health workers in the region, the paper provides a brief review of the existing scholarly literature on the vulnerability of different groups of the 'left behind’, particularly women, children and the elderly. It argues that a multi-dimensional approach is needed, taking into consideration not only the economic impact of remittances but also factors such as social networks and gender effects.     

变动中的东亚地缘政治与美国东亚政策的演变

近年来,伴随着中国的快速发展和东亚地缘政治格局的变化,美国加快了向东亚转移战略力量的步伐,这一动向值得中国关注。本文通过对近代以来东亚地缘政治格局的变化进行分析,系统梳理了美国东亚政策的来龙去脉及其主线,并对美国东亚政策的未来走向进行了预研。     

TRADITION AND CHANGE IN MARRIAGE PAYMENTS IN VIETNAM, 1963–2000

This study analyses data from the Vietnam Study of Family Change to document trends and determinants of marriage payments in Vietnam from 1963 to 2000. We investigate the extent to which structural and policy transformations influenced the practice of payments, and estimate how societal changes indirectly impacted payments via their effects on population characteristics. Results indicate that marriage payments surged following market reform, but also reveal nuanced trends during earlier years. While the socialist attempts to eradicate brideprice appear to have been successful in the North before economic renovation, they were unsuccessful in the South. Structural and policy change explained most of the observed variations in payments. The changing characteristics of the married individuals mattered relatively less. We interpret the re-emergence of marriage payments as attesting to the resilience of traditional values and the unravelling of the socialist agenda, but also as a reflection of Vietnam's economic prosperity in the 1990s.