Histories of Spousal Migration

The ‘mail-order bride’ flow is one of the latest iterations of bride migration to Australia, a nation which, from the early days of white settlement, has been troubled by a demographic sex imbalance coupled with an anxiety to populate the ‘empty continent’. Selective male migration tied to economic opportunity has characterised many waves of migration post-colonisation. Brokered female marriage migration has been a response to the sex imbalance created by migration policies. ‘Family reunion’ (encompassing visas for partners) became a significant component of immigration policy in the latter part of the twentieth century. The interconnectedness of the late twentieth century world facilitated brokered migration of women from Southeast Asia, especially the Philippines. The negative stereotypes of Asian-Australian marriages that emerged in response to these marriages reflect underlying ideologies of gender relations that developed in the early years of colonisation, where male convicts outnumbered women by a factor of 6 to 1. This chapter reviews the history of sex-selective—and marriage—migration to Australia, and the popular discourses that have emerged in response.