"From foreign workers to foreign spouses" ─ Case studies of Marriages between Thai workers and Taiwanese.

• Main Authors: Han-Wei Liu, 劉涵葳
• Other Authors: Ching-lung Tasy
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/61568211767095251908

碩士 === 淡江大學 === 亞洲研究所碩士班 === 100 === Taiwan government legally opened foreign labor to work in Taiwan since 1992. Generally most foreign labors in Taiwan are female except Thailand. Thai labor is mostly dominated by men who came to do a short-term supplementary work in manufacturing and construction industry. The initially limitation of staying for them is three years per time but now it has been extended to 12 years. Although the duration has been extended but foreign workers still have to face many restrictions. In addition, many Southeast Asian women came to Taiwan by “marriage immigration” as foreign bride that has been discussed for so many years, however, there’s only few research for discussing transnational marriage of men. This research is aimed to the interviewees who are the Thai workers intended to work in Taiwan at first but later on married with Taiwanese. The research is also discussed why they chose to marry after worked in Taiwan. Is the reason for economic factor or for non-economic factor? According to this study, the primary reasons that cause the Thai workers to come to Taiwan for a job are based on the economical factors, but after they have a factory life in Taiwan and get along with the Taiwanese for a longer time, the co-workers from Taiwan are those they choose to marry finally. This fact shows that the economical factors are not the only reasons in these marriages and indicates that the foreign workers can get married due to the love since Taiwan has welcomed them to have a job legally twenty years ago. However, there is a contradiction now─ Taiwan needs more foreign workers and agrees them to stay here for a longer time, but at the same time, strongly forbids them to be immigrants by the exotic marriage. In this study, all of the respondents are willing to become a foreign spouse from a foreign worker. No matter their marriages are based on the love or the economical factors, all of them show that they can get higher salary in Taiwan instead of in Thailand, especially for those are in the exotic marriage because of the endless time for staying in Taiwan and the fact that they can change their boss. To sum up, the exotic marriages are so related to the jobs so that the boundary between them is very difficult to point out clearly.