Wife or worker? Worker or wife? Marriage and cross-border migration in contemporary Japan

The global trend of increasing numbers of international couples can also be witnessed in Japan where Southeast and Northeast Asian women dominate numerically. This paper reviews the existing literature on marriage and migration exploring the connections between international migration for work and international marriage. It is argued that a dichotomous approach analysing migrant women as either migrants for marriage or overseas contract workers needs to be questioned. Based on a lack of theorising as well as a lack of empirical studies of the link between migration and marriage, the aim is to set out a new conceptual framework highlighting marriage either as the result of cross‐border migration or the cause thereof and to give some directions for future research. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.