Salient Features of Vietnamese and Filipina Brides of American Citizens: Findings Based on the Micro Data of Recent American Community Surveys

美籍丈夫之越南與菲律賓新娘的特徵：基於近期美國社區問卷調查之發現

10.6191/jps.2012.1

廖高禮(Kao-Lee Liaw)；黃汀(Ting Huang)

越南與菲律賓新娘 ； 美國 ； 教育 ； 工作 ； 收入 ； Vietnamese and Filipina brides ； America ； education ； employment ； income

人口學刊

44期（2012 / 06 / 01）

1 - 56

英文

此文通過2005年至2007年美國社區問卷調查的微觀合併數據，來研究嫁給美國公民的越南和菲律賓外籍新娘的教育，工作，和收入之特徵。研究發現要點如下。由於越南新娘，在教育程度和英文能力上比菲律賓新娘低很多，所以導致了：（一）越南新娘的受僱傭率比菲律賓新娘的受僱傭率更低；（二）越南新娘在其經濟利基（沙龍業）獲得的收入比菲律賓新娘在其經濟利基（醫療服務業）獲得的收入要低。通常受過較高教育的新娘可獲得較高的機會嫁給受過較高教育的丈夫，所以越南新娘的美國丈夫之教育程度是低於菲律賓新娘的美國丈夫之教育程度。但丈夫們的教育程度之落差較新娘們的教育程度之落差則小很多。其原因是除了教育程度外，外貌和性格同時也是新郎在挑選新娘時考慮的重要因素，而外貌和性格則與教育程度無關。此兩組新娘之家庭收入差距更不大，部分原因則是越南新娘強烈地傾向於高攀婚姻。一個令人欣慰的發現是嫁給美國公民的越南和菲律賓新娘均很少落入貧困階層。這發現則與人種學研究常發現的那些在高收入亞洲國家的外籍新娘之不幸情況正好相反。文獻中的一個想法是，低收入國家的女性願意通過嫁給比自己的教育程度低的外籍丈夫來獲得融入高收入社會的機會。此想法在菲律賓新娘上只得到中度的支持，而在大多數的越南新娘上則是被否定。

This paper studies the educational, employment, and income status of Vietnamese and Filipina brides of American citizens, based on the merged micro data of the 2005, 2006, and 2007 American Community Surveys. We found that the Vietnamese brides tended to be much less educated than the Filipina brides. This difference, together with the fact that the former tended to be much weaker in English language ability than the latter, contributed to (1) the finding that the Vietnamese brides had a lower employment rate than did the Filipina brides, and (2) the finding that the economic niche of the employed Vietnamese brides (in the salon sector) tended to yield substantially lower wages than did the economic niche of the employed Filipina brides (in the medical service sector). Since better-educated brides had a better chance to get married to better-educated husbands, we naturally found that the husbands of the Vietnamese brides tended to be less educated than the husbands of the Filipina brides. However, the gap in educational attainment between the two groups of husbands was substantially smaller than the corresponding gap between the two groups of the brides. Underlying this gender difference was the fact that in addition to educational status, beauty and pleasant personality were also important criteria for selecting wives, and the possibility that beauty and pleasant personality were not positively correlated with educational status. With respect to household income, the gap between the two groups of brides was not large, partly because of the strong tendency of the Vietnamese brides toward hypergamy. A nice finding was that both Filipina and Vietnamese wives of American citizens were at rather low risk of being in poverty. The rather negative images of foreign brides in higher-income Asian countries conveyed by many ethnographic studies have been countered by our more sanguine finding about the Vietnamese and Filipina brides in the United States. With respect to the idea that women in lower-income countries tend to accept hypogamy at the personal level in order to achieve hypergamy at the societal level, it was moderately supported by the Filipina cases but largely negated by the Vietnamese cases.

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