In cross-border marriage conflicts in Hong Kong, money is the heart of the matter

More than 20 years after the handover, more Hong Kong people are marrying partners from mainland China. According to a 2018 census report, about 34.7 per cent of newly-registered marriages in 2016, or 17,352 out of 50,008, were cross-border marriages.

Public reactions to reports about domestic violence in cross-border families tend to pin the blame on “mainland brides”, with marital discord often assumed to stem from cultural differences in cross-border marriages. The common perception is that the wives in these relationships struggle to adapt to life in Hong Kong, with the age difference between them and their typically older husbands being an inevitable source of strain. 

Accordingly, government support for these families, in terms of policy and resources, has focused on mainland wives. This has come in the form of, for instance, lessons on Cantonese or how to adapt to life in Hong Kong. However, these cultural assimilation initiatives, while needed, carry a built-in gender bias. Most problematically, they are missing the crux of the matter.

Cultural or age differences are, in fact, not the main cause of conflict in cross-border families. I recently interviewed 871 cross-border families in a bid to understand conflict in cross-border marriages through the two factors of age difference between partners and socio-economic disadvantage.