Hello, 

I'm doing a report on the so called "Mail Order Bride" business. I
need real statistics on it. All I've so far found are useless
anecdotes. These anecdotes have been mostly posted by people hoping to
either profit from it or feminists who deride it.

I need specific statistics on the divorce rate of couples with an
American husband and a foreign (non citzen) wife living in the US. I
found information from the census bureau on divorce, but nothing
pretaining directly to marriage between a US man and a foreign bride.
They have statistics on the divorce rate, and foreign marriages are
doubtless included in this, however it's impossible to derive the
foreign bride divorce rate from that alone. The only interesting trend
which relates to this which I have so far found is that Pacific
Islanders have a significantly lower divorce rate, around 20%.

Optimal would be recent Statitics from a reputable source on the
divorce rate for American men married to foreign women. With a nice
bonus if you could break it down into the divorce rate on a country of
origin country basis.

Thanks in advance for your answers!

What I've found so far: 
http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/p70-80.pdDivorcef - Census Bureau stats
http://www.divorcereform.org/rates.html - A site with some promising links
http://www.divorcereform.org/sha.html - Foreign divorce rates in Shanghai

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Clarification of Question by kai_hvatum-ga on 03 Jul 2004 09:25 PDT

Clarification,

If possible, I would like to differentiate between soldiers who marry
foreign brides and US citzens who marry foreign brides.

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Request for Question Clarification by techtor-ga on 05 Jul 2004 22:16 PDT

Hello Kai_hvatum,
I was able to find a few sources saying that While American divorces
take 50% of marriages, only 20% of American men-foreign wives end in
divorce. These sources though seem to be on the humorous side (one is
a blog I believe), but I believe they cite actual statistics. Is this
the kind of statistic you are looking for? Would you need the sources?
As of now, though, there aren't any sources I've found yet that are
more detailed.

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Clarification of Question by kai_hvatum-ga on 10 Jul 2004 21:11 PDT

That is exactly the type of statistic I'm looking for. Detail isn't
required, merely hoped for. If I can get a statistic on foreign
marriage divorce rate over a ten or more year period from a reputable
source, that would be a five star answer.

I couldn't find one that listed a reputable source though, they seemed
to be mostly picked out of the air. If you've found the source, please
give it to me!

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Request for Question Clarification by techtor-ga on 18 Jul 2004 08:20 PDT

Hello again Kai_hvatum,
I am still unable to locate the original source of the statistic yet.
No other more specific sources of this statistic have been seen
online, since it was mentioned in a site giving an opinion on how
better foreign wives are than American wives (hmmm, another debate
topic under another light). Neither have other statistics been found
on other aspects of American husband-foreign wife unions. Most likely
the stuff will be found offline (like in books and the library).
That's all, just to let you know.

I can only offer you some additional perspectives to consider in your
report since these are area which I believe skew the statistics:

1. Try to seprate the soldiers who got married overseas and brought
their brides back to the U.S. from everyone else.  During war, there
is a lot of stress, and people get married for very different reasons
than when they're not in stressful conditions.  My guess is that
you'll find an above-average divorce rate in this area.

2. Try to find out how many of these divorced people come from
backgrounds where their parents were:  a., divorced before they left
the home, and b., divorced after they left the home.  My guess is that
you'll find a higher divorce rate for those who's parents divorced
before they left the home since children tend to blame themselves when
their parents split up and are distracted from experiencing a healthy
childhood as a result.

The more of a detailed breakdown that you can provide, the more
complete and objective your report will be.  If you can accomplish at
least some of this, I'm sure your report would be very interesting to
psychologists, therapists, etc., and you may even be able to publish
and sell it.

I hope that helps.  Good luck with your research!

Hi ramblingdiatribe-ga,

Thank you very much for your suggestions. The idea of seperating those
who marry soldiers and those who marry citizens is exteremly useful.
Hopefully I will be able to find some statistics which differentiates
between the two.

Although making money off of the report is an intruiging idea, I don't
plan too. I simply plan to compile the statistics and do an analysis
of them, and then post the .pdf somewhere.

Kai.

Just a thought - you said that you're trying to write a report on
mail-order brides. I would guess that most marriages with a foreigner
are not "mail order" but "normal" marriages (whatever that means).

I am helping my wife with an essay on the same topic, were you able to
find hard statistics?

Sorry redwings43-ga, I have yet to find any statistics. I will post here if I do.