View article

We study the economic assimilation of marriage migrants in South Korea. Females migrating from poorer countries to marry men in richer ones is an important phenomenon. Analyzing data from over 70,000 such marriages in Korea, we document that marriage migrants tend to have low earnings and employment rates upon arrival. However, their economic outcomes improve fast and, after 15 years, they tend to have higher employment rates and near equal income as native-born Korean wives. In contrast, intra-household decision-making power cannot be caught up even after 15 years of migration. Regarding decision-making on daily expenditures, only 40% of marriage migrants who spent more than 15 years in Korea made the decisions themselves, whereas more than 60% of native women made decisions themselves. Leveraging unique ethnicity variations in Korea, we find that language skills are important to explain the gap in decision-making within households. This study sheds light on the nuanced dynamics of assimilation, emphasizing that economic achievements may not necessarily translate into equitable decision-making power within the household for migrant women.∗ Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago. Contact: syahn@ uic. edu.† Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago & NBER. Contact: lubotsky@ uic. edu.