International Marriages and Fertility in Okinawa : Reproduction strategies of family and migrant women in Tarama village

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This research explores the changes in the mode of family reproduction in contemporary Okinawa with the highest fertility in Japan from the perspective of gender. It focuses on the increase in commercialized international marriages in Tarama village in Miyako county, which gets attention for a high birth rate in Okinawa. The investigation content is as follows : the statistical changes in population, marriage, and fertility, the marital squeeze for Okinawan men, the increase in commercialized international marriages, and the social situation of migrant women from Asian countries who are married to Okinawan men. The interviews with eleven Vietnamese women and Filipinas show the migrant women's and their husbands social attributions as well as social situation and the background and process of marriage with some brokers. The marital migrant women, who are in the circumstances of being over head and ears in debt since they left their countries, are deprived of their autonomy by the commercialized process of international marriage. On the other hand, administrative or social supports specific to the migrant women are little to no.