“Foreign Brides” Meet Ethnic Politics in Taiwan

‘‘Foreign Brides’’ Meet Ethnic Politicsin TaiwanMing-Chang TsaiDepartment of Sociology, National Taipei University, Taipei, Taiwan

A great number of women from China, Vietnam, and Indonesiarecently arrived in Taiwan to marry men of lower social strata. Suchan unusual pattern of migration has stimulated debates about thestatus and the citizenship of the new arrivals. This study analyzesTaiwanese responses toward these marriage migrants by using anational survey conducted in 2004. Three aspects of restrictive atti-tudes were tapped concerning these newcomers: (1) rights to work;(2) access to public health insurance; and (3) full citizenship. Immi-grants from China were most opposed, compared to women withother origins (Southeast Asia, Japan, Europe, and the US). The seem-ingly unrelated regression estimation regression results do not supportthe split labor market hypotheses, as marriage migrants do not appearto be economic threats toward members of the lower classes. Incontrast, ethnic nationalism plays a key role in determining thenatives’ restrictive attitudes. The case of Taiwan represents a specialgenre, where ethnic politics selectively arouses the social rejection ofwomen immigrants of certain origins.

Taiwan has hardly been a society for immigrants. The most recent waveof immigration is a result of a civil war in the late 1940s. Defeated by theChinese Communist Party in a conflict over mainland China, the Nation-alist government retreated to the island of Taiwan with approximatelytwo million people, comprised of members of the military and civilians.Since then, Taiwan has adopted a policy of severe immigration restrictionto safeguard this island against the communist penetration. Immigrationthus contributed little to the country’s current population of 23 million.Today, Taiwan attracts attention from very few immigrants as well asfrom researchers in this field (Castles and Miller, 2003), with one excep-tion being the invitation of 360,000 Southeast Asian guest workersemployed in lower grade jobs (Tseng, 2004; Wang and Belanger, 2007).

Nonetheless, during the past 15 years, many women marriage migrantshave arrived in Taiwan. Among the 399,000 in Taiwan at the end of 2009,their three largest countries of origin are China (65.2%), Vietnam (20.7%)

� 2011 by the Center for Migration Studies of New York. All rights reserved.DOI: 10.1111/j.1747-7379.2011.00847.x

IMR Volume 45 Number 2 (Summer 2011):243–268 243

and Indonesia (6.5%). Most of these ‘‘foreign brides’’ came in the peak yearsof 2001–2003 (see Figure I).1 This rising tide of incoming marriage migrantscame much quicker than a preceding one in the late 1980s, when a largegroup of veterans took a chance on marrying or remarrying with much youn-ger spouses when they were allowed to return to China to pay hometown vis-its. Currently, Taiwan registers an astonishingly high proportion of cross-national marriages: 29.1% compared to 4.9% in Japan and 6.1% in SouthKorea (Kojima, 2008). The ratio of domestic to cross-national marriagedeclined toward 3.5 in the 3 years from 6.4 in 1998.

Unlike conventional immigrant families observed in industrial coun-tries, who arrive with close family members and often reside in ethniccommunities that abound with inter-personal supports (Portes, Haller,and Eduardo Guarnido, 2002), the marriage migrants of Taiwan arrivedalone and are dispersed widely in individual native families across varioustowns and cities. By way of arrangement by marriage brokers, they oftenmarried spouses from lower social strata: while three-quarters of womenimmigrants from Southeast Asia finished junior high school or less, 20%of their husbands have even less education. The age differences betweenthese women and their husbands is also noteworthy: For those fromChina, more than 50% have a gap of 11 years or over between husbands’and wives’ ages; for those from Southeast Asia, more than 61%2 havesuch gap. A notable difference among migrant wives is that nearly 20%

Figure I. Cross-border Marriage in Taiwan (%)

1Source: National Immigration Agency, Ministry of the Interior, Republic of China

<http://www.immigration.gov.tw>. Accessed on November 24, 2009.2Note that for Chinese brides the age gap larger than 20 years comprised 19%, comparedto 11% for Southeast Asian brides. See Chen (2007, 2008) for useful group-based statistics

from a national survey conducted in 2003.

244 International Migration Review

of Chinese marriage migrants had experienced one marriage before, ascompared to fewer than 4% of their Southeast Asian counterparts. Bothgroups of women had an average arrival age of below 30 – and, on thewhole, they quickly gave birth in the first or second years of residence.These women contributed 13.5% of Taiwanese newborns in 2003–2004,compared to only 5.1% in 1998 (Chen, 2008).

The marriage migrants in Taiwan perhaps possess no less commit-ment to intimate relationships, family, and children than those usingother novel mating strategies, such as mail order brides from Latin Amer-ica or Russia (Minervini and McAndrew, 2006) or more traditionalapproaches to mate selection. Yet, as newcomers, they have been stereo-typed extremely negatively. As cross-border marriages have been highlycommercialized, the mass media does not hesitate to report stories of howthey are seen as a ‘‘market of cheap human meat.’’3 Marriage brokersfrom Taiwan who managed the provision of young women in SoutheastAsian countries were accused of creating something akin to a ‘‘concentrationcamp of brides.’’ They also provided medical inspections as evidence thatthese women were virgins, to meet the demand of their husbands-to-befrom Taiwan. High divorce rates of this population further strengthenedsocial discrimination from natives (Chen, 2007). The divorce ratio ofdomestic to cross-border couples declined rapidly from 16.5 in 1998 to5.9 in 2001–2003 (see Figure II).4 However, fake marriage played a role inthe ever increasing denominators. In some instances, marriage migrants lefttheir husbands immediately after they entered Taiwan and became prosti-tutes.5 Those from Southeast Asia also were reported to be victims ofhuman trafficking organized by local gangsters.6 They are further classified

3A scandalous report in 2004 documented that marriage brokers brought four youngwomen from Vietnam to Taiwan for display, and asked for $300,000 TD (currentexchange rate is 32 TD for one US dollar) to marry them. Source: BBC Chinese News,

September, 11 2004. See also: ‘‘Imperial Matchmaking: Three to Four Hundred Bridesfor Picking’’, United Daily News, June, 11 2004.4See footnote 1.5Official statistics report that of the documented illegal activities among Chinese inTaiwan ‘‘working without permission’’ and ‘‘prostitution’’ constituted two major catego-ries. Source: National Immigration Agency <http://www.immigration.gov.tw/np.asp?

ctNode=29698&mp=1>. Accessed on December 12, 2008.6Source: ‘‘Cambodian girl went to Taiwan in fake marriage-Husband is found a drugdealer with AIDS,’’ Sinchew Daily, Cambodia, July 26, 2008 <http://www.sinchew-i.com/

sciCAM/node/8283>.

Marriage Migrants 245

as ‘‘unhealthy,’’ as there is a speculation that they were exposed to toxicchemicals that the US used in the Vietnam War.7 The questioning of the‘‘human quality’’ extends to the offspring of marriage migrants. Over10,000 of their children have entered school each year since 2006. Theiracademic performance was considered to be lower than average inpublic discourse on this issue, even though empirical evidence did notsupport this claim (Chao, Chung, and Jiang, 2007). As Southeast Asianmarriage migrants are not familiar with local language and culture beforearrival, they in particular were viewed as biologically ‘‘fertile brides’’ yetculturally ‘‘unfit mothers’’ for raising the next generation (Lan, 2008).Government officials, politicians as well as educational researchers, agreedto target them as a policy priority. Behind these policy opinions is ananxiety that the average quality of the population in Taiwan will bereduced by the increasing number of children from cross-bordermarriages. The marriage migrants not only are classified as having lowersocial status; they are also racialized as members of an inferior species. Akind of moral panic spread in Taiwanese society, with native-born Taiwan-ese fearing a chaotic breakdown of the social order triggered by the flood-ing of a large group of ‘‘strangers,’’ ‘‘others,’’ and even ‘‘enemies’’ into thecountry.

Marriage migrants in Taiwan constitute a very special case ofimmigration. Our survey of their current situations hints at a special

Figure II. Cross-border Divorce in Taiwan (%)

7Source: ‘‘Liao Pen-Yen: Vietnamese brides should provide health certificate,’’ United

Daily News, February 4, 2006.


phenomenon of antipathy on political-cultural grounds. While currentempirical research on the ‘‘split labor market’’ theory has concentrated onthe how economic interests of native peoples affect their acceptance ofimmigrants, and particularly on how economic marginality generatesunfavorable attitudes toward immigrants (Bonacich, 1972, 1976; Citrinet al., 1997; Coenders and Scheepers, 2003; Espenshade and Hempstead,1996; Hernes and Knudsen, 1992; Semyonov et al., 2004; Sniderman,Hagendoorn, and Prior, 2004; compare Espenshade and Calhoun, 1993),our research supports an alternative view. In investigating anti-immigrantprejudice among the Taiwanese masses, this study revisits the conventionalsplit labor market theory and develops a new angle on ethnic politics forexplanation. This study shows that hostility toward them is a product ofdistinctive ethnic nationalism. Evidence for this argument is derived fromour quantitative analysis of a national probability sample in Taiwan.

THEORETICAL ARGUMENTS

The Split Labor Market Hypothesis

The split labor market theory provides a standard argument of negativeattitudes toward immigration. A brief look at this theory may be useful tobetter understanding the complex setting of the Taiwanese variant. Thesplit labor market theory proposes that hostility against immigrants germi-nates from nationals’ resentment of immigrants’ strategy of undercuttingprices to compete for jobs in labor markets. As native workers are threa-tened by immigrants’ willingness to be paid less for comparable work,they act to exclude immigrants from entering the territory. If this is notpossible, they will attempt to confine them to a narrow range of marginaland menial jobs, thus splitting a labor market not merely along class linesbut often dividing it along ethnic lines (Bonacich, 1972, 1976; Boswell,1986; Turner, 1986). Immigrants’ economic threats, objective or per-ceived, are identified as a main source of ethnic antagonisms (Bonacich,1972). Responses from various classes can be further specified. Propertyowners exploit the immigrants to intimidate the native employed toaccept lower wages. The middle class, if organizing effectively, candemand government policies to restrict the economic roles of ethnicimmigrants in the designated sectors or industries, thus avoiding priceundercutting and sustaining their incomes and living standards. In com-parison, small independent entrepreneurs can be undermined, ‘‘since the


employer of cheaper labor can produce at lower cost’’ (Bonacich,1972:553). The lower working class tends to be victimized by cheap laborcompetition. They experience reduced bargaining capacities and depress-ing wages; therefore they are more likely to demonstrate strong antipathytoward immigrants.

Note that the above mentioned threats also relate to the sharing ofprecious public services and resources. Immigrants’ usage of social servicesystems is conceived to reduce the size of the welfare pie to which nativeshave access, even though they often pay more taxes. From a service utili-zation perspective, immigrant resentment could occur most significantlyamong the affluent classes, as they contribute more to taxation than thepoor (Simon, 1987; Fetzer, 2000).

If the split labor market assumes that self-interest operates as a cen-tral mechanism for explaining how opposition toward immigrants evolvesamong the lower classes, a ‘‘zero-sum’’ situation between natives and out-siders is implicated in the dynamics of inter-group relations. Previousstudies also suggest that antipathy can be substantially tempered whenmeaningful rather than causal contact with immigrants increases (Espen-shade and Calhoun, 1993; Quillian, 1995; McLaren, 2003). This studydoes not argue against such possibilities. Rather, what interests us is theway the marriage migrants are situated in Taiwan, because of the unique-ness of this immigration niche. It is important to investigate if the pre-sumed interest conflict exists and therefore affects hostility against thisstill incoming population. If it does not, alternative explanations shouldbe sought.

Ethnic Politics: The Influence of Political Affiliation and NationalistIdeology

This study explores ethnic politics as a special factor in observing ethnicantagonism in Taiwan. By ‘‘ethnic politics,’’ we mean the dynamics ofethnicity-based identity and contention in shaping a group’s conceptionof desirable social and political orders. We specifically hypothesize thatthe dynamics of ethnic politics can exercise strong influences on an indi-vidual’s dispositions to accept or oppose immigrants of certain back-grounds. While conflicting interests and market competition betweennatives and immigrants are stressed by the split labor market, for theethnic politics perspective, the ‘‘symbolic boundaries’’ produced out of


group contention account for antipathy toward out-groups. We explainhow such boundaries have been crafted in contemporary Taiwan andderive our hypotheses in this section.

The majority of Han Chinese living in Taiwan are part of theHokkien ethnic group (also referred to as Minnan or Holo), whose ances-tors came from the Fukien (Fujian) province of China many generationsago. Another wave of Hakka migrants later moved to Taiwan from whatis now known as China’s Guangdong province. Hokkien and Hakka peo-ple constitute the category now referred to as ‘‘Taiwanese,’’ in contrast to‘‘Mainlanders’’ who retreated from China in the late 1940s.8 The formercomprise 84% of the total population, and the latter comprise 14%. Anadditional 2% of the populace consists of Austronesian aboriginals.9

In the immediate postwar periods, Chiang Kai-Shek and his ChineseNationalist Party (the Kuomintang [KMT] party) established a militaryauthoritarian regime on Taiwan by way of controlling a large army thatcame from mainland China. The KMT ruled in colonial tyranny andtreated Taiwan as a conquered territory (Meisner, 1963; Mendel, 1970).The cleavage between ethnic Taiwanese and Mainlander Chinese parallelsthe inequalities in political power and cultural prestige biased toward thelatter (Gates, 1981). The reaction and discontent toward Mainlanders’privileges activated a long lasting social movement known as ‘‘Formosannationalism,’’ in which the majority of Taiwanese favored the establish-ment of an independent state without ties to China and, preferably, with-out the presence of Mainlanders (Meisner, 1963:91). This on-goingpolitical struggle between the two major ethnic groups features an identitycontention by native Taiwanese to assert their categorical difference fromthe Chinese outsiders (Simon, 2003).

Embedded in this nationalist ideology are three main tenets. First,the Mainlanders and the Chinese-based Nationalist Party were delegiti-mized by contrasting the corrupt and suppressive Nationalist government

8At the time of the communist victory in 1949, a prominent difference among Han groupsliving on Taiwan Island was the use of various dialects for informal communication – the

Hokkien using minnan-hua and the Hakka using a unique hakka dialect as their spokenlanguages. Mainlanders primarily used Mandarin Chinese, and over the ensuing decadesMandarin became dominant for formal communication.9Source: Statistical Yearbook of the Republic of China 1992, page 56–57. No statistics onethnic backgrounds have officially been documented since. A recent national survey (Yang,2004) using a self-identification approach indicated that, as of 2004, the Hokkiens consti-

tuted 73.3%, the Kakka 12.6%, the Mainlanders 8.8%, and the aboriginals 1.9%.


with the efficient and benign rule under Japanese colonialism during1895–1945. Stigmatization of the Nationalists, though forbidden in pub-lic discussion, was widespread in private communication among Taiwan-ese (Mendel, 1970). By way of critique of the colonial experience, ananti-Mainlander sentiment was firmly established in the 1950s and 1960s(Simon, 2003).10

The second tenet of Taiwanese nationalism is that Taiwan shouldseek an independent national identity (Hsiau, 2005). Numerous opposi-tion movements, organized by the Taiwanese middle class, started to mobi-lize natives’ support in electoral competitions in the late 1970s. Thesemovements aimed at not merely acquiring an equal share of political powerfor Taiwan’s major ethnic groups, but also at building an independentnational identity vis-a-vis China. The ultimate goal for Taiwanese national-ists and their representative political parties (the Democratic ProgressiveParty and the Taiwan Solidarity Union) is to establish an independent sov-ereign republic (Schubert, 2004; Yu and Sze Man Kwan, 2008).

Third, as the People’s Republic of China emerges as a regional andworld power and continues to enforce the ‘‘one-China’’ policy in which Tai-wan is claimed to be part of China’s territory, it is conceived to be a seriousthreat to Taiwanese independence. As a result, a radicalized version ofTaiwanese nationalism further promotes strong anti-China attitudes, aposition that actively discourages its supporters from relationships withgoods or with people from across the Taiwan Strait (Tsai and Chang,2010).11 During 2000–2008, Taiwanese nationalism was reinforced by theDPP’s winning of two presidential elections, as well as by the NationalistParty’s current policy shift toward developing closer ties with China.

Taiwanese nationalism comes close to what is termed ‘‘ethnicnationalism,’’ in which sentiment based on genealogy or presumed descentties provides the fundamental materials for the blueprint of a nation-to-be(Smith, 2001). The quest for sovereignty with a new national identityand independent statehood operates as a clear-cut dividing line that

10It is a stark contrast to Korea that sees Japanese colonization as coercive and exploitive.11A former legislator from the TSU comments: ‘‘In 2008, one hundred and ten thousandmainland China marriage migrants, out of a total of two hundred and forty thousand, willobtain the ID card (namely citizenship in Taiwan). Will they vote for our Liao Pen-Yen

(who is the party representative of the TSU in the congress)? They will certainly vote for apan-blue presidential candidate like Ma Ying-jeou (current president of Taiwan).’’ Source:Epoch Times, January 5, 2007, ‘‘Taiwan Solidarity Union: China brides become a voting

team.’’


inevitably polarizes the two ethnic groups. Such symbolic boundaries con-stitute a solid basis of inter-group tension and antagonism. In contrast,another ideal type of civic nationalism, which emphasizes a shared cultureand common aspirations that rationally associate incoming immigrantstogether within a single national identity, is relatively underdeveloped incurrent Taiwan.

We explore the effect of the ethnic nationalism of Taiwan on mar-riage migrants. It is hypothesized that Taiwanese background, affiliationwith the DDP or its alliances, and pro-independence attitudes generatestrong unfavorable attitudes toward those from China, despite their com-mon origin in terms of culture. Marriage migrants from other regions arenot targets of this nationalist ideology, so we therefore expect thatTaiwanese ethnic identity and nationalist attitudes have less influence onattitudes toward those from elsewhere, a cross-validation to examine ifTaiwanese nationalism targets only specific outsiders.

METHODS

Data

The data in this study are drawn from the fourth edition of the TaiwanSocial Change Survey (TSCS). Analogous to the British Social Attitudesand the U.S. General Social Surveys, the TSCS gathers varied informationon family, consumption, employment activities, cultural values, religiouspractices, and other topics. This edition of the survey gave special empha-sis on topics related to citizenship, political participation, and religiousbehavior, besides standard background information. Using a multi-stage,area-stratified probability sampling design, this survey collected informa-tion from adult respondents (age 18 and over) residing in 37 cities andtowns of various sizes across Taiwan in 2004. The sample this study usedwas 1401 employed men and women.12

12From the original sample of 1781 respondents, we excluded students, people who are

disabled, and retired respondents (approximately 20% of our sample) in estimation fromthe original sample. A small subpopulation of aboriginals (0.8%) was also excluded. 1.3percent of respondents whose spouses’ origin country was not from Taiwan was not

included in analysis to prevent influences of their potential favoritism. Our use of a smal-ler size of respondents does not create a selection problem, as statistical tests we conducteddid not show substantial differences between the targeted respondents and those dropped

out in terms of attitudes toward marriage migrants.


Measurement

Attitudes Toward Marriage Migrants. The respondents were asked toanswer if more policy restriction should be applied to female marriagemigrants from three groups of countries (China; Southeast Asia; andJapan, Europe, and the US) with regard to: (1) rights to work; (2) pub-lic health insurance; and (3) citizenship.13 The first statement is relevantto job competition, while the second relates to the use of public ⁄ socialservices. The last statement concerns the naturalization of immigrants.The three items represent major policy debates in Taiwan (Tsai et al.,2007).

Education and Class Position. Respondents’ educational attainment levelsand class positions are used to test whether individual human capital andemployment relations influence attitudes toward marriage migrants, as thesplit labor market theory predicts. Educational level is measured by fourdiscrete categories (from junior high school to university) to capture dis-tinctive differences in educational effects. In measuring social class, wefirst consider the dimension of ownership, and identify two classes: (1)business owners who hire two or more employees14; and (2) the self-employed, who hire 0–1 employee (Wright, 1997). For the rest of theemployed, we then consider two dimensions – skill level and organiza-tional authority (or supervisory function in management). The classifica-tion effort results in an additional four classes: (1) the managers, whohave effective authority over subordinates and possess valuable credentials;(2) the professionals, who have specific skills required by certain jobs butdo not supervise others; (3) the semi-skilled technicians, who possess lim-ited credentials or human capital; and (4) the lower grade workers. The

13The original question reads, ‘‘In recent years, many females from other countries weremarried and moved to Taiwan. Do you think, compared to domestic people, should thegovernment restrict European, American or Japanese (Southeast Asian, or mainland

China’s) brides’ legal work rights (participating in public health insurance, or obtainingcitizenship of Republic of China) in Taiwan?’’ The opinion is given on a three-pointscale – should severely restrict, should somewhat restrict, and better not restrict.14It is possible further to break down the capitalist group by number of employees hired.Yet as those hiring more workers, for instance, hiring more 10, constitute only 1.2 per-cent, we decided to not separate them from the grouping of the business owners in order

to prevent estimation instability.


last group possesses little or no skill in either manual or clerical jobs.15 Inour analysis, the managers and the professionals are collapsed into a‘‘skilled professional class’’ as the former constitutes only 2.1% of thesample. Our classification outcomes show consistency with other waves ofTSCS surveys (Tsai and Chang, 2010). The design of our class schemereflects the major categories that the split labor market most concerns andshould effectively tap potential differences among respondents from vari-ous employment positions (Scheepers, Gijsberts, and Coenders, 2002;Semyonov et al., 2004). (see Appendix for basic statistics.)

Ethnicity and Party Preference. Three relevant indicators are used to mea-sure the main elements of Taiwanese nationalism. The first one is ethnicbackground. Nearly four-fifths (78.2 %) of the respondents in our sampleidentified themselves as Hokkien, 14.8 percent identified as Hakka, and7.0 percent identified as Mainlanders.16 The Mainlanders are used as areference group in dummy design and are expected to have less restrictiveattitudes than the two Taiwanese groups do. Second, political affiliation isbased on respondents’ identification on a spectrum from ‘‘pan green’’ (theDPP and its alliances) to ‘‘pan-blue’’ (the KMT) on a five point scale.It is hypothesized that pan green supporters possess stronger restrictivismthan the pan blue do. Third, with regards to Taiwan–China relations,three groupings were classified according to their preference: pro-indepen-dence, pro-unification, and maintaining the status quo. The latter consti-tutes a part of the population regularly identified in various surveys likeours, many of them being ‘‘conditional supporters’’ for independence dueto fear of military attack from China (Niou, 2004; Wang and Liu, 2004).Pro-unification effectively captures potential differences from the pro-independence position, a stance which we expect to associate positivelywith restrictivism.

15The last group can be broken down further by sector or skill level. Our preliminaryanalysis did not find significant results using a more detailed classification. Our class

scheme is thus adequate for creating estimations. The grouping is based on information inTSCS, which provides occupational coding following the system of the InternationalStandard Classification of Occupations (Chang and Fu, 2005:284-293).16Mainlanders are to some extent less represented in this wave of the TSCS survey,perhaps due to recent emigration of this group to China (Tsai and Chang, 2010). See alsofootnote 9. However, this should not lower statistical power in estimation because the size

of this subgroup (n = 99) remains large statistically.


Individual- and Structural-level Controls. Several demographic back-grounds were used as controls. It is expected that males are more likely toshow favorable attitudes than females as they are potential beneficiariesfrom cross-border marriage. A dummy design of gender was constructed(male = 1, female = 0).17 Age is also expected to be positively associatedwith antipathy. We rearranged the respondents into four subgroups (ageunder 30, 31–40, 41–50, and 51 and over) to see more clearly whetherthe younger groups are more likely to be open to immigrants. Experienceof inter-group contacts has been found to generate favorable attitudestoward outgroup members (Pettigrew, 1998; Yi and Chang, 2006), so weexamined this as well. We use frequency of contact with foreigners(including guest workers), which is measured on a five point scale (from‘‘almost everyday’’ to ‘‘never’’), as a proxy.

The vigilance toward immigrants’ potential threats may increasewhen their relative group size becomes larger in the community, andwhen local economies experience slower growth (Kunovich, 2004; vanTubergen, Maas, and Flap, 2004; Alba, Rumbaut, and Marotz, 2005).These structural-level factors are incorporated in our analysis as additionalcontrols. We first compute the percentage of women marriage migrantsover the adults at the county level18. This regional variable can be consid-ered as a proxy of exposure to marriage migrants; or it may reflect an out-come of self-selection in which the respondents disliking foreignnewcomers choose to leave the communities when they move in. Theexposure hypothesis seems to be more likely as there is only a weak associ-ation between class position and contact with marriage migrants in neigh-borhoods in the Taiwan context (Tsai, 2010). To measure a region’seconomic situation, we compute a ratio of family income increase on athree year’s moving average (that is, income1999–2001 ) income2001–2004 ⁄income2001–2004),19 and expect it to be negatively correlated with opposi-tional attitudes.

17We decided to exclude marital status and urban residence from the estimations, as thesetwo factors failed to reach significance in preliminary analyses, despite their observableinfluences in some previous studies (Tittle and Stafford, 1992; Wilson, 1995).18Source: Dept of Household Registration, Ministry of the Interior. Accessed on August17, 2009.19Source: National Statistics, <http://61.60.106.82/pxweb/Dialog/statfile9.asp>. Accessed

on August 17, 2009.


Estimation. Answering to a series of policy attitudes implies that theresponses can be influenced on some common factors that are unspeci-fied in the models. Whereas the disturbances in each regression equationfor our dependent variables can be assumed to be uncorrelated, thoseacross equations might be highly correlated – practically, a respondentthat answered favorably to ‘‘right to work’’ tended to agree on the othertwo measures. We use the seemingly unrelated regression estimation(SURE) to take into account the specific structure of disturbances. TheSURE techniques treat our three measures as a set of equations andconduct a feasible GLS estimation to obtain increased efficiency(Johnson and DiNardo, 1997). An additional merit of this technique isits ability to assess an explanatory variable’s influence in the designatedsystem of equations, allowing a test for overall effects. The bootstrap re-sampling method is used to obtain a more accurate standard error forhypothetical testing in a situation of the unknown true variance (Efronand Tibshirani, 1993).

Our data contain both individual and regional-structural informa-tion. Individuals from a certain region may be ‘‘nested’’ and influencedby regional properties such as local economic conditions and the visibilityof incoming immigrants. However, a preliminary analysis using the multi-level model (Raudenbush and Bryk, 2002) did not indicate such nested-ness in our data.20 In the following analysis, our estimation report isbased on the SURE estimates.

ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

Table 1 displays statistics of attitudes toward three policy issues forwomen marriage migrants from Mainland China, Southeast Asia, andother industrial countries, respectively.21 Paralleling previous research thatindicated the masses’ widespread negative attitudes toward immigrants(Espenshade and Hempstead, 1996; Chandler and Tsai, 2001), restrictivismis also documented among Taiwan respondents. Approximately two-thirds

20We conducted the one-way ANOVA with random effects (Raudenbush and Bryk, 2002)and found low intra-class (that is, across counties in our case) correlation coefficients. For

instance, for the right to work for marriage migrants from China, it is as low as 3%,showing most of the variance is due to individual rather than regional influences.21Approximately 4–5% of the respondents did not answer these questions (‘‘can’t choose’’

or ‘‘don’t know’’). They were treated as missing values.


agreed to exert at least some restrictions regarding rights to work. Accessto public health is allowed more generously, as the hostile stance sinks toapproximately half the respondents. However, with regard to citizenship,strong antipathy once again is observed as the percentage of choosing‘‘severe restriction’’ is consistently larger than those opposed to workrights and public insurance access. As citizenship is an inclusive right, notsurprisingly, high reservation is exercised over it. In contrast, a system oflow premia in Taiwan’s public health insurance22 might not generate aserious concern over who shares the pooled resources. Thus, health insur-ance benefits are conferred to immigrants with the least reservation amongthe three policy issues.

When it comes to the origins of marriage migrants, those fromMainland China are most disfavored. In all three rights, those fromindustrial countries are most welcome to obtain the good in question,especially citizenship. Those from Southeast Asia lie in between twoends.

In investigating oppositional attitudes toward marriage migrants, wefirst conducted estimations of restrictive attitudes with a ‘‘black andwhite’’ model. That is, we evaluated if ethnic politics operates against allimmigrants23 regardless of their origins and specific rights issues. The

TABLE 1ATTITUDES TOWARD RESTRICTIONS ON WOMEN MARRIAGE MIGRANTS (%)

Country of origin

Mainland China Southeast Asia Industrial countries

Rights to work Severe 27.9 22.1 19.8Some 40.8 44.7 45.4

Better no 31.3 33.3 34.8Health insurance Severe 20.9 17.4 16.5

Some 30.4 31.5 30.3Better no 48.7 51.1 53.2

Citizenship Severe 30.0 25.5 22.1Some 38.6 40.0 40.5

Better no 31.4 34.5 37.4

22For those that receive the minimum wage, their monthly premium is as low as $600TD. A relatively low skilled worker pays about $900 TD. This premium system is applied

to foreigners the same way.23We generated a new binary variable for those who chose ‘‘severe restriction’’ for all threeitems for all three origins of marriage migrants (9.0%), in contrast to the other two

responses that now are together considered ‘‘less restrictive.’’


probit regression results showed that the Hokkien and Hakka dummiesregistered slight influence while party preference or support of Taiwanindependence failed as predictors (not shown to save space). Since mostrespondents do not fit well into this strict ‘‘either-or’’ framework, wedecided to conduct separate analyses of antipathy toward migrants of dif-ferent origins.

The regression outcomes for Chinese migrants are shown onTable 2. A test of independence rejects the hypothesis of no associationamong the three dependent variables, justifying our usage of the SUREmodeling. We first evaluate in the upper panel the influences of education

TABLE 2ATTITUDES TOWARD POLICY RESTRICTIONS ON WOMEN MARRIAGE MIGRANTS FROM CHINA

Work Health insurance Citizenship

Human capital and class positionEducation(junior high school or less = 0)

High school 0.013 )0.023 0.038Junior college )0.053 )0.057 )0.112University or higher )0.152* )0.165* )0.167*

Employment position(low grade worker = 0)Business owner )0.210* )0.101 )0.110Self-employed )0.012 0.145 0.034Skilled professional )0.057 0.103 )0.070Semi-skilled professional )0.013 0.083 0.034Unemployed )0.044 )0.064 )0.082Houseworking wives )0.034 0.109 )0.048

Ethnicity and party preferenceEthnicity(Mainlander = 0)

Hokkien 0.340*** 0.345*** 0.259**Hakka 0.230* 0.250** 0.173

Party preference for ‘‘Pan Green’’ 0.177*** 0.191*** 0.186***Taiwan–China relation (pro-unification = 0)

Pro-independence 0.202* 0.200* 0.267**Neutral 0.010 )0.012 0.023

Demographic and regional level controlsMale )0.061 )0.065 0.025Age (under 30 = 0)

31–40 )0.050 )0.099 )0.139*41–50 )0.002 0.037 )0.06651+ 0.021 )0.006 )0.116

Contact )0.013 )0.022 0.008Proportion of women marriage migrants 0.045* 0.070*** 0.044*Change of average family income )0.017** )0.017** )0.023***Constant 1.483 1.066 1.485Pseudo R2 0.079*** 0.093*** 0.084***Test of independence: v2(df) 1963.7(3)***N 1297

Note: Seemingly unrelated regression estimates.*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 (based on bootstrap standard errors).


and social class (including the unemployed and houseworking wives dum-mies24) on three distinctive rights, net of the influences of other control-ling factors (in the bottom panel).25 University graduates show lessnegative attitudes (columns 1–3). There is debate concerning the interpre-tation of the educational effect. The moral enlightenment perspectiveargues that college education should decrease prejudice because the valuesof humanity and equality are taught (Livingstone, 1985; Zipp, 1986).The ideological refinement viewpoint suggests that the highly educateddevelop a capacity to elaborate a symbolic concession because their sup-port of minorities can be superficial (Jackman and Muha, 1984). Ourresults demonstrate that the colleges educated consistently hold less restric-tive attitudes regardless of origin or specific rights or citizenship. Themoral enlightenment perspective gains ground here.

Our class categories failed to exhibit differences in statistical testing.We only find observable differences for business owners, who adopted lessrestrictive attitudes with regard to employment, as the split labor markettheory expects. All other class categories do not generate notabledifferences.

In contrast, ethnic politics variables produced remarkable influences,as displayed in the second panel. Two ‘‘native’’ groups registered substan-tial antipathy in the first two rights and the Hokkiens further extend suchopposition to citizenship conferment. Party preference also producesexpected impacts toward the Chinese migrants: ‘‘pan green’’ supportersadopted restrictive positions consistently on three measures. The thirdelement of ethnic politics, endorsing independence of Taiwan, registeredno less strong opposition throughout the table.

Table 3 reports estimation results for immigrants from SoutheastAsia. The educational effect remains, despite insignificance on healthinsurance. Class position generally fails the test. We found that only thebusiness owners registered relatively favorable positions on both work andcitizenship rights, compared to lower grade workers. Housewives showrestrictivism in health insurance. These piecemeal bits of evidence offer

24The unemployed might be likely to develop strong antipathy due to immigrant-gener-ated competition in the labor market. Housewives are included as a dummy in order tokeep more cases in analysis when conducting estimations of other potential factors.25Both gender and contact variables do not perform well in this study, whereas age andregional income change show substantial impacts. The age group 31–40 is more likely tobe sympathetic, as men in this group constitute the vast majority of ‘‘demands’’ for

marriage migrants.


insufficient support for the split labor market hypothesis. In the secondpanel, the Hokkiens remain loyal opponents throughout the table. Thecoefficients for the Hakka decrease to insignificance. Notably, ‘‘pan-green’’party affiliation is strongly associated with restrictivism in all three rights.Pro-independence politics fails to boost antipathy in all three rights. Over-all, ethnic politics wanes in strength of prediction across these categories.

Marriage migrants from rich countries face the least restrictiveattitudes among the three groups upon which we focus in this study. Suchsentiments appear clear among respondents with college educations. Thisevidence demonstrates a slight favoritism among the higher educatedfor migrants from certain countries. In terms of class positions, the

TABLE 3ATTITUDES TOWARD POLICY RESTRICTIONS ON WOMEN MARRIAGE MIGRANTS FROM SOUTHEAST ASIA



High school )0.003 )0.026 0.022Junior college )0.101 )0.060 )0.132University or higher )0.172* )0.152 )0.172*

Employment position(low grade worker = 0)Business owner )0.185* )0.082 )0.192*Self-employed 0.043 0.136 )0.000Skilled professional )0.034 0.079 )0.129Semi-skilled professional )0.026 0.099 0.033Unemployed 0.017 0.001 )0.087Houseworking wives )0.026 0.145* )0.067


Hokkien 0.199* 0.241** 0.196*Hakka 0.115 0.164 0.113

Party preference for ‘‘Pan Green’’ 0.114* 0.126** 0.117*Taiwan–China relation (pro-unification = 0)

Pro-independence 0.126 0.092 0.129Neutral 0.012 )0.053 )0.021

Demographic and regional level controlsMale )0.108** )0.089 )0.017Age (under 30 = 0)

31–40 )0.058 )0.145* )0.159*41–50 )0.058 )0.011 )0.10251+ 0.008 )0.047 )0.112

Contact )0.020 )0.028 0.001Proportion of women marriage migrants 0.050** 0.061*** 0.033Change of average family income )0.013** )0.016** )0.018***Constant 1.584 1.264 1.683***Pseudo R2 0.060*** 0.070*** 0.054***Test of independence: v2(df) 1801.5(3)***N 1296

Note: Seemingly unrelated regression estimates.*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001(based on bootstrap standard errors).


self-employed demonstrate oppositional attitudes on access to healthinsurance (column 2) of Table 4. Elsewhere, social class does not producean observable influence on the equations.26 The second panel shows eth-nic politics to be diminishing in predictive power. The Hokkien respon-dents still register notable antipathy on all three rights. The Hakka peopledo not hold observable differences in attitudes toward the mainlanders.Party preference reaches statistical significance on one out of three equa-tions (column 2 for health insurance). Pro-independence politics producesno substantial influence at all throughout the table. The reduced influenceof ethnic politics on this table provides useful cross-validation that ourpolitical theory performs better for marriage migrants originating fromChina and Southeast Asia.

Ethnic politics, overall, seems to have the greatest explanatory power.We further test for joint significance, that is, if a certain factor is significantsimultaneously on the three rights for a specific group of immigrants. Withregard to the three rights restrictions toward Chinese immigrants, theHokkien identity, pan green party affiliation, and pro-independence allpassed this test(v2 = 24.1, 17.6, 11.2, respectively, p < 0.05 or better withdf = 3). For marriage migrants from Southeast Asia and industrial coun-tries, only the Hokkien group reaches significance in joint effect tests. Theseresults further confirm that ethnic identity matters most,27 particularlywhen it comes to marriage migrants from China (cf. Chen and Yu, 2005).

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Numerous women immigrants from mainland China and Southeast Asiahave moved to Taiwan to perform social reproductive functions in thepast decade. The welcome for them has been marked by ambivalenceamong the Taiwanese. They are appreciated as they carry the burdens ofhousehold responsibilities at home and boost fertility for Taiwanesesociety, which has observed sinking birth rates. They are not considered asubstantial threat in terms of job competition, as they are constrained

26We additionally estimated the influence of income. However, we did not observe anysubstantial impact of this factor to support the split labor market hypothesis.27I further conducted a ‘‘post-estimation’’ analysis by investigating if residuals from each

equation differ among ethnic groups. The findings show that the Hokkiens registered thehighest score, while the Mainlanders registered the lowest consistently throughout. A slid-ing function as such further confirms our argument about the importance of ethnic

identity.


both by patriarchal family structures and restrictive employment policies.Many of them have been kept away from job markets even though theyhave strong motivations to work. Strict constraints on their income-gener-ating activities in some cases were deliberately designed by their husbands,so that marriage migrants, lacking economic independence, could be disci-plined and kept ‘‘safely at home’’ to fulfill their major functions of repro-duction and household laboring as quickly as possible after they arrived inTaiwan (Williams and Yu, 2006; Wang and Tang, 2008). While some ofthem are able to develop affinity in situ with other marriage migrants inlocal migration centers supported by government agencies, such groupshave been weak in building extensive networks with natives. Social isola-tion plus language difficulties (especially for Southeast Asian migrants)substantially reduce their likelihood of getting even marginal jobs. On theother hand, strict government policies have prevented their participationin labor markets and securing of citizenship. Marriage migrants frommainland China are not admitted in the labor market in their first 2 yearsof residence and afterward are given work permits only under very restric-tive conditions.28 While those from Southeast Asia encounter fewer policyrestrictions and can receive a work permit once they obtain their perma-nent residence status, they nevertheless have difficulties in getting jobs dueto their limited human capital and language fluency (Tsai et al., 2007).29

The Taiwanese government helps craft a ‘‘gender regime’’ that affects thereproduction of the conventional sexual division of labor, which marriagemigrants have enormous difficulties negotiating (Robinson, 2007).

The marriage migrants as such constitute a class of their own. Thesplit labor market hypothesis of economic interests-determined reactionstoward immigrants may not adequately describe their situation. Never-theless, a strong tide of hostility has surged against their residence andattainment of various rights to fully participate in social life in Taiwan.While some researchers document similar associations among nationalismand exclusionism toward immigrants in the context of European societies

28They could work legally only when the spouse is a ‘‘low income’’ earner by government

criteria; aged over 65; is disabled or sick from severe disease; or when they become victimsof domestic violence (Bureau of Employment, Vocational Training, 2006).29Despite these policy restrictions, statistics shows that 32% of marriage migrants from

China were employed, which was 8% higher than their Southeast Asian counterparts as of2003 (Ministry of the Interior 2004). Both figures are significantly lower than that ofnative females, who registered a rate of 47.1% as of 2003 <eng.stat.gov.tw/public/data/

dgbas03/bs2/socialindicator/employment-table.xls>. Access date: August 13, 2009.


(Ceobanu and Escandell, 2008), our study further specifies the elementsof ethnic politics and its targeted immigrants in Taiwan. The findingssuggest that the impact of ethnic nationalism, represented and measuredin distinctive ways in specific countries, cannot be underrated too much.

The current Taiwanese opposition toward marriage migrants comesclose to what Smith (2001) has termed ‘‘ethnic nationalism’’ (Smith,2001). In this ideal type, the border is closed to those that do not possessa collective common culture, origin, or history. Exclusionism of this sortapplies well to the Southeast Asians migrants. Yet, Formosan nationalismfeatures a marked disposition to distrust Chinese-related people orthings – the Mainlanders, the Chinese Communist Party, cross-straitinvestment, or ‘‘Made in China’’ products (Tsai and Chang, 2010),despite their common cultural heritage and genealogy. Likewise, a con-structed national identity emerging among ethnic Taiwanese constitutesan element in a brewing antipathy and prejudice against Chinese immi-grants. Here, the ‘‘imagined community of fate’’ as proposed by Anderson(1983), operates forcefully. Those conceiving Taiwan as a nation havecalled for a deep comradeship to firmly establish an ethnic collectivity.This fraternity has gained ground to the extent that rights and equity arenot conferred to newcomers, especially to the Chinese immigrants, whoinescapably have to join in political contention between native Taiwaneseand Mainlanders. Restated, the doubt and hostility cast on this migrantgroup do not originate from their economic threat. The split labor markettheory does not describe marriage migrants as they are a class of theirown. What this study stresses is the critical influence of an anti-Chinesecomplex that many native Taiwanese had inscribed in their ethnic identityvis-a-vis ‘‘Chinese others.’’ Native Taiwanese lower class men marriedwomen immigrants to satisfy their personal needs. Yet, an unintendedconsequence is that their spouses suffer as a target of emerging nationalistexclusionism that draws a clear fault line between the Taiwanese and theChinese. Identity effects as such stretch upon Southeast Asian marriagemigrants, only abating when it comes to those from rich countries.

The distinctive pattern in which these women immigrants meet localethnic politics suggests that to soften (if not able to eliminate) national-ism-based restrictivism, the Taiwan state and civil groups both shouldencourage a multiethnic civic culture that sees cross-border marriage as apositive element in enriching the variety of the national populace andethnic cultures. But as the KMT won the presidential election in 2008and adopted a pro-China policy, the increasingly ‘‘peaceful’’ relationship


across Taiwan Straits seems not to reduce domestic hostility towardChinese marriage migrants. Instead, as the mainlander KMT apparentlypursues a policy position leaning toward future unification with China,increasing antipathy of native Taiwanese to immigrants is furtheractivated. Two major political parties (DPP and KMT) recognize theimportance of these newcomers for their fierce competition of power inelectoral competitions. What new ethnic categories both camps willre-invent for various immigrants and how the latter will fit into these newidentity spaces necessarily complicates the dynamic interactions amongnative Taiwanese, Mainlanders, and women immigrants in this society.

TABLE 4ATTITUDES TOWARD POLICY RESTRICTIONS ON WOMEN MARRIAGE MIGRANTS FROM

INDUSTRIAL COUNTRIES



High school )0.063 )0.066 )0.073Junior college )0.178** )0.118 )0.257***University or higher )0.218** )0.173* )0.251**

Employment position(low grade worker = 0)Business owner )0.148 )0.083 )0.157Self-employed 0.066 0.190** )0.056Skilled professional )0.059 0.077 )0.123Semi-skilled professional )0.010 0.092 )0.000Unemployed )0.001 )0.025 )0.129Houseworking wives )0.012 0.121 )0.073


Hokkien 0.164* 0.236** 0.231**Hakka 0.055 0.175 0.159Party preference for ‘‘Pan Green’’ 0.083 0.102* 0.066

Taiwan–China relation (pro-unification = 0)Pro-independence 0.130 0.112 0.069Neutral 0.005 )0.067 )0.053

Demographic and regional level controlsMale )0.092* )0.038 )0.022

Age (under 30 = 0)31–40 )0.074 )0.131* )0.12041–50 )0.047 )0.005 )0.09351+ 0.030 )0.061 )0.084

Contact )0.034* )0.029* )0.013Proportion of women marriage migrants 0.047** 0.049** 0.035*Change of average family income )0.018*** )0.019*** )0.018***Constant 1.662 1.306 1.718Pseudo R2 0.074*** 0.072*** 0.060***Test of independence: v2(df) 1437.8(3)***N 1280

Note: Seemingly unrelated regression estimates.*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 (based on bootstrap standard errors).


APPENDIX

Descriptive Statistics of Variables (%)

Education Junior high school or less 41.7High school 27.6Junior college 15.1University and above 15.7

Employment position Business owner 6.6Self-employed 12.2Skilled professional 7.8Semi-skilled professional 13.3Unskilled workers 37.3Unemployed 7.0Houseworking wives 15.8

Ethnic background Mainlander 7.0Hokkien 78.2Hakka 14.8

Cross–strait relations Pro-unification 12.3Pro-independence 21.7Neutral 66.0

Party preference ‘‘Pan Green’’ = 1; others = 0 31.5Gender Male 48.0

Female 52.0Age Under 30 years 23.9

31–40 21.041–50 24.051+ 31.1

Contact with foreigners ‘‘Almost everyday’’ to ‘‘never’’on 5 point scale

Mean = 2.29 (1.54)

Percent of women marriage migrants Regional level (see text) Mean = 4.72 (1.20)Change of family income Regional level (see text) Mean = )1.38(4.34)

Note: Standard deviations are represented in parentheses.

REFERENCES

Alba, R., R. G. Rumbaut, and K. Marotz2005 ‘‘A Distorted Nation: Perceptions of Racial ⁄ Ethnic Group Sizes and Attitudes

toward Immigrants and Other Minorities.’’ Social Forces 84:901–919.

Anderson, B.1983 Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London:

Verso.

Bonacich, E.1972 ‘‘A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism: The Split Labor Market.’’ American Sociological

Review 37:547–559.

———1976 ‘‘Advanced Capitalism and Black ⁄ White Race Relations in the United States:

A Split Market Interpretation.’’ American Sociological Review 31:34–51.


Boswell, T.1986 ‘‘A Split Labor Market Interpretation of Discrimination against Chinese

Immigrants, 1850–1882.’’ American Sociological Review 51:352–371.

Bureau of Employment and Vocational Training2006 Handbook of Assisting Employment for Foreign and Mainland China Spouses. Bureau

of Employment and Vocational Training: Taipei.

Castles, S., and M. J. Miller2003 The Age of Migration, 3rd ed. New York: Guilford.

Ceobanu, A. M., and X. Escandell2008 ‘‘East Is West? National Feelings and Anti-Immigrant Sentiment in Europe.’’ Social

Science Research 37:1147–1170.

Chandler, C. R., and Y.-M. Tsai2001 ‘‘Social Factors Influencing Immigrations Attitudes: An Analysis of Data from the

General Social Survey.’’ The Social Science Journal 38:177–188.

Chang, Y.-H., and Y.-C. Fu2005 Taiwan Social Change Survey: Executive Report for the Fourth Round of the Fifth

Wave Survey. Taipei: Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica.

Chao, S.-R., F.-C. Chung, and Y.-J. Jiang2007 ‘‘The Impact Factors of Children’s School Achievement in Foreign Bride Families:

From the Perspectives of Individual Demographic Characteristics, Leaning BehaviorAbility and Family Environment (in Chinese).’’ Bulletin of Educational Psychology(National Taiwan Normal University) 39(1):129–147.

Chen, Y.-H.2007 ‘‘Individual and Structural Determinants of Marital Stability: An Exploration of

Cross-Border Marriage in Taiwan.’’ Population and Society 3(2):1–28.

———2008 ‘‘The Significance of Cross-Border Marriage in a Low Fertility Society: Evidence

from Taiwan.’’ Journal of Comparative Family Studies 39:331–352.

Chen, C.-J., and T.-L. Yu2005 ‘‘Public Attitudes toward Taiwan’s Immigration Policies (in Chinese).’’ Taiwanese

Sociology 10:95–148.

Citrin, J., D. P. Green, C. Muste, and C. Wong1997 ‘‘Public Opinion toward Immigration Reform: The Role of Economic Motiva-

tions.’’ Journal of Politics 59:858–882.

Coenders, M., and P. Scheepers2003 ‘‘The Effect of Education on Nationalism and Ethnic exclusionism: An

International Comparison.’’ Political Psychology 24(2):313–343.

Efron, B., and R. Tibshirani1993 An Introduction to the Bootstrap. Boca Raton, FL: Chapman and Hall ⁄ CRC.

Espenshade, T. J., and C. A. Calhoun1993 ‘‘An Analysis of Public Opinion toward Undocumented Migration.’’ Population

Research and Policy Review 12(3):189–224.

———, and K. Hempstead1996 ‘‘Contemporary American Attitudes toward U.S. Immigration.’’ International

Migration Review 30:535–570.


Fetzer, J. S.2000 Public Attitudes Toward Immigration in the United States, France and Germany.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gates, H.1981 ‘‘Ethnicity and Class’’ In The Anthropology of Taiwanese Society. Ed. E. M. Ahern,

and H. Gates. Stanford: University of Stanford Press. Pp. 241–281.

Hernes, G., and K. Knudsen1992 ‘‘Norwegians’ Attitudes toward New Immigrants.’’ Acta Sociologica 35:123–139.

Hsiau, A.-c.2005 ‘‘Epilogue: Bentuhua-An Endeavor for Normalizing a Would-Be Nation?’’ In

Cultural, Ethnic, and Political Nationalism in Contemporary Taiwan. Ed J. Makeham,and A.-c. Hsiau. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, Pp. 261–276.

Jackman, M. R., and M. J. Muha1984 ‘‘Education and Intergroup Attitudes: Moral Enlightenment, Superficial Democratic

Commitment, or Ideological Refinement?’’ American Sociological Review 49:751–769.

Johnson, J., and J. DiNardo1997 Econometric Methods, 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Kojima, H.2008. ‘‘A Comparative Analysis of Attitudes toward Children in East Asia.’’ Unpublished

paper. Tokyo: Waseda University.

Kunovich, R. M.2004 ‘‘Social Structural Position and Prejudice: An Explanation of Cross-national Differ-

ences in Regression Slope.’’ Social Science Research 33:20–44.

Lan, P.-C.2008 ‘‘Migrant Women’s Bodies as Boundary Markers: Reproductive Crisis and Sexual

Control in the Ethnic Frontiers of Taiwan.’’ Signs 33:833–861.

Livingstone, D. W.1985 ‘‘Class, Educational Ideologies, and Mass Opinion in Capitalist Crisis: A Canadian

Perspective.’’ Sociology of Education 58:3–20.

McLaren, L.2003 ‘‘Anti-Immigrant Prejudice in Europe: Contact, Threat Perception, and Preferences

for the Exclusion of Migrants.’’ Social Forces 81:909–936.

Meisner, M.1963 ‘‘The Development of Formasan Nationalism.’’ The China Quarterly 15:91–106.

Mendel, D.1970 The Politics of Formosan Nationalism. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Minervini, B. P., and F. T. McAndrew2006 ‘‘The Mating Strategies and Mate Preferences of Mail Order Brides.’’ Cross-Cultural

Research 40:111–129.

Ministry of the Interior2004 Report on Survey of Foreign and Mainland Chinese Spouses’ Living Conditions. Taipei:

MOI.

Niou, E. M. S.2004 ‘‘Understanding Taiwan Independence and its Policy Implications.’’ Asian Survey

44:555–567.


Pettigrew, T. F.1998 ‘‘Intergroup Contact Theory.’’ Annual Review of Psychology 49:65–85.

Portes, A., W. J. Haller, and L. Eduardo Guarnido2002 ‘‘Transnational Entrepreneurs: An Alternative Form of Immigrant Economic

Adaptation.’’ American Sociological Review 67:278–298.

Quillian, L.1995 ‘‘Prejudice as a Response to Perceived Group Threat: Population Composition and

Anti-Immigrant and Racial Prejudice in Europe.’’ American Sociological Review60:586–611.

Raudenbush, S. W., and A. S. Bryk2002 Hierarchical Linear Models. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Robinson, K.2007 ‘‘Marriage Migration, Gender Transformation, and Family Values in the ‘Global

Ecumene’.’’ Gender, Place and Culture 14:483–497.

Scheepers, P., M. Gijsberts, and M. Coenders2002 ‘‘Ethnic Exclusionism in European Countries: Public Opposition to Civil Rights for

Legal Migrants as a Response to Perceived Ethnic Threat.’’ European SociologicalReview 18:17–34.

Schubert, G.2004 ‘‘Taiwan’s Political Parties and National Identity: the Rise of an Overarching

Consensus.’’ Asian Survey 44:534–554.

Semyonov, M., R. Raijman, A. Yom Tov, and P. Schmidt2004 ‘‘Population Size, Perceived Threat, and Exclusion: a Multiple-Indicators

Analysis of Attitudes toward Foreigners in Germany.’’ Social Science Research33:681–701.

Simon, R.1987 ‘‘Immigration and American Attitudes.’’ Public Opinion 10(2):47–50.

Simon, S.2003 ‘‘Contesting Formosa: Tragic Remembrance, Urban Space, and National Identity in

Taipak.’’ Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 10:109–131.

Smith, A. D.2001 Nationalism. Cambridge: Polity.

Sniderman, P. M., L. Hagendoorn, and M. Prior2004 ‘‘Predisposing Factors and Situational Triggers: Exclusionary Reactions to Immi-

grant Minorities.’’ American Political Science Review 98:35–49.

Tittle, C. R., and M. C. Stafford1992 ‘‘Urban Theory, Urbanism, and Suburban Residence.’’ Social Forces 70:725–744.

Tsai, M.-C.2010. ‘‘From Contact to Acceptance: A Re-examination of Supportive Attitudes toward

Marriage Migrants in Taiwan.’’ Paper presented in the Conference of EthnicTaiwan: Interaction, Exclusion, and Integration, July 28, 2010 National TaipeiUniversity, Taiwan.

———, and C.-f. Chang2010 ‘‘China-Bound for Jobs? The Influences of Social Connections and Ethnic Politics

in Taiwan.’’ The China Quarterly 203:639–655.


Tsai, M.-C. et al.2007. Immigration Policy Research and Responses. (Background research report for Popula-

tion Policy White Paper). Taipei: Ministry of the Interior.

Tseng, Y.-F.2004 ‘‘Expressing Nationalist Politics in Guestworker Program: Taiwan’s Recruitment of

Foreign Labor (in Chinese).’’ Taiwanese Journal of Sociology 32:1–58.

van Tubergen, F., I. Maas, and H. Flap2004 ‘‘The Economic Incorporation of Immigrants in 18 Western Societies: Origin,

Destination, and Community Effects.’’ American Sociological Review 69:704–727.

Turner, J. H.1986 ‘‘Toward a Unified Theory of Ethnic Antagonism: A Preliminary Synthesis of Three

Macro Models.’’ Sociological Forum 1:403–427.

Wang, H.-z., and D. Belanger2007 ‘‘Transnational Labor Migration System between Vietnam and Taiwan: in Whose

Interests? (in Chinese)’’ Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in Social Science 65:35–66.

Wang, T. Y., and I.-C. Liu2004 ‘‘Contending Identities in Taiwan.’’ Asian Survey 44:568–590.

Wang, H.-z., and W.-h. Tang2008. ‘‘Employment Processes and Limitations of Foreign Brides (in Chinese).’’ Unpublished

paper, Kaohsiung: Graduate Institute of Sociology, National Sun Yat-sun Univer-sity.

Williams, L., and M.-K. Yu2006 ‘‘Domestic Violence I Cross-border Marriage—A Case Study from Taiwan.’’ Inter-

national Journal of Migration, Health and Social Care 2:58–69.

Wilson, T.1995 ‘‘Urbanism and Unconventinality: The Case of Sexual Behavior.’’ Social Science

Quarterly 76:346–363.

Wright, E. O.1997 Class Counts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Yang, W.-S.2004. ‘‘National Hakka Population: A Survey of Basic Data.’’ Taipei, Taiwan: Council of

Hakka Affair, Executive Yuan.

Yi, C.-C., and Y.-H. Chang2006 ‘‘Attitudes toward Having a Foreign Daughter-in-Law: The Importance of Social

Contact (in Chinese).’’ Taiwanese Sociology 12:191–232.

Yu, F.-L. T., and D. S. M. Kwan2008 ‘‘Social Construction of National Identity: Taiwanese versus Chinese Conscious-

ness.’’ Social Identities 14:33–52.

Zipp, J. F.1986 ‘‘Social Class and Social Liberalism.’’ Sociological Forum 1:301–329.


Documents

“Foreign Brides” Meet Ethnic Politics in Taiwan