How does marriage demand stimulate support for immigration in Asia?

作者：Shao, Li; Du, Juan; Han, Rongbin; Liu, Dongshu^*

来源：Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2023, 49(5): 1311-1330.

DOI：10.1080/1369183X.2021.1971959

• Immigration support
• marriage
• China
• Asia
• public opinion on immigration

The previous literature suggests that citizens calculate the benefits of immigrants by assessing their impact on economic prospects. This paper argues that a type of social demand-the demand for marriage-also induces support for more liberal immigration policies. We conducted a survey experiment with 3,000 adults in China, where the population faces a shortage of women in the marriage market. The respondents were assigned to four groups, namely, a control group, a group with low-skilled worker shortage cues, a group with high-skilled worker shortage cues, and a group with marriage market crisis cues. We found that the marriage crisis treatment was effective to male respondents but not to female respondents. A supplementary examination of cross-national survey data showed that a gender imbalance at birth can elicit citizens' higher support for immigration in 13 Asian countries/regions. The results show that, other than economic considerations, citizens' concerns about marriage market competition can also stimulate immigration support.

• 单位
  清华大学; 浙江大学