S. Koreans Search Far and Wide for a Wife

Tens of thousands of South Korean men look to China, Vietnam and beyond for wives, in response to a shortage of brides caused by a generation of gender-selective births. Since ultrasounds became widely available in the 1980s, parents in South Korea could screen out undesirable daughters, resulting in a gender imbalance of 113 males for every 100 females. The countryside’s shortage of marriage-age women is exacerbated, with young women migrating to the cities and escaping the patriarchal lifestyle of their youth, in search of careers and urban husbands. The trend also diversifies the homogeneous country while aggravating comparable shortages of women in China and elsewhere. With men willing to pay up to $20,000 to tie the knot, the global trade in wives is quickly becoming big business. – YaleGlobal