Volume 24 - Article 26 | Pages 633-670

Reproductive contributions of Taiwan´s foreign wives from the top five source countries

By Kao-Lee Liaw, Ji-Ping Lin, Chien-Chia Liu


Date received:	30 Jun 2010
Date published:	27 Apr 2011
Word count:	11711
Keywords:	fertility, international marriage, international migration, reproductive contribution, Taiwan
DOI:	10.4054/DemRes.2011.24.26

Abstract

This research studies the reproductive contributions of Taiwan’s foreign wives from China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, based on applications of the multinomial logit model to the micro data of the 2003 Census of Foreign Spouses. Wives from China are found to have the lowest lifetime fertility of 1.4 children, mainly because they were more prone to marry later, have a very large spousal age gap, be separated or divorced, and have their current marriage be their second marriage. The effect of wife’s educational attainment on lifetime fertility turned out to be either modest or nonexistent.

Author's Affiliation

Kao-Lee Liaw - McMaster University, Canada [Email]
Ji-Ping Lin - Academia Sinica, Taiwan [Email]
Chien-Chia Liu - Academia Sinica, Taiwan [Email]