中國配偶面談政策對防止虛假結婚的分析

Abstract

近十年來，台灣的跨國婚姻、「外籍新娘」、新移民數量逐漸增加，已經成為社會的重要議題之一。過去，報章媒體所稱的「假結婚、真打工」或「假結婚、真賣淫」曾經引起國人的密切注意，為了防止「假結婚」的不法情事，政府於2003年12月起全面實施中國配偶面談政策，所有來台的中國配偶必須先接受移民署的面談，通過者才得以入境和婚姻登記。根據政府統計，2003年登記結婚的中國配偶有34,426人，2004年只有10,972人，人數明顯減少三分之二，乍看之下政府的這項面談政策似乎非常有效，然而除非假結婚比例在政策實施前後明顯改變，否則我們不能斷定面談政策的效果。 不過現實上警政單位不可能抓到所有假結婚者，因此真實的假結婚比例未可知，本文嘗試以幾個替代指標來估計假結婚比例，並據此評估中國配偶面談政策在減少假結婚比例上的效果。本文經由探討本國男子娶外籍配偶的原因、以及政府核發外籍配偶簽證的相關規定，來尋找合適的假結婚指標，由於本國娶外籍配偶的男子多來自婚姻觀念較傳統與保守的家庭，他們通常會面臨成家立業與傳宗接代的家族壓力，因此本文認為「結婚兩年內沒生小孩」可以是一個合適的假結婚指標，另外，「結婚兩年內離婚」也可能作為另一假結婚指標，因為如果「假老公」貪圖人蛇集團給的酬庸，他會希望趕快離婚好再去賺另一筆，但這個指標不如前一個指標穩定，因為外籍(包含中國籍)配偶簽證相關的規定在外籍配偶入台的前兩年比較嚴格，所以「假老婆」為了展延合法的居留簽證，不能在短期內離婚，因此同時考慮兩方的誘因之下，「結婚兩年內離婚」可能不太合適作為假結婚指標。 經由合併3個官方的登記資料檔(婚姻登記、離婚登記、出生登記))，本文得以掌握全國所有在1998年至2006年結婚的配偶們，其後續的婚姻表現，包括：婚後有無離婚、有無生小孩。由於此次面談政策的施行對象僅包括中國籍配偶，而不包括其他諸如東南亞籍的外籍配偶，因此本文以本國男子迎娶東南亞籍新娘的異國婚姻為控制組，本國男子迎娶中國籍新娘的異國婚姻為對照組，採取「差異中的差異」(differences-in-differences)法進行Probit迴歸分析，實證結果顯示中國配偶面談政策降低假結婚比例約10%-14%。

As transnational marriage boomed in the past decade, it also aroused growing concerns in Taiwan, particularly of false marriage, or fake marital relationship. In order to reduce the number of false marriage and thus Chinese illegal immigration traffic, the government embarked on an interview policy at year-end 2003 requiring that all Chinese spouses be interviewed before they come to Taiwan and register their marriage. Only those who pass the interview are allowed to register marriage in Taiwan. The number of registered Chinese spouses dropped from 34,426 persons in 2003 to 10,972 persons in 2004, which at first sight seemed to be a great achievement by the tight policy. However, only when the percentage of false marriage drops can this policy be considered successful. In reality, the actual ratio of falsehood to all registered transnational marriage might never be determined. This paper attempts to solve this problem and proposes a few substitutive indicators as an alternative way to verify the effectiveness of the interview policy. This paper digs into the reason why Taiwanese men marry foreign women, evaluates the incentive system behind false marriage, and further proposes “no childbearing within two years after marriage” as an indicator for false marriage in that Taiwanese men in search of foreign spouses are most likely to be bachelors from traditional families where sons must bear the obligation to propagate. On the other hand, the validity of using “divorce within 1-2 years” as an indicator for false marriage is doubtful due to conflicting incentives faced by falsely wedded couples. Hence this paper attempts to measure the average treatment effect of the visa interview policy with the first indicator. By merging different official national registry data sets, all couples wedded during 1998-2006 and their post-marital performances (whether they got divorced or had born children afterwards) are identified. This paper adopts “differences-in-differences” strategy to analyze the average treatment effect by comparing two different groups of foreign couples, the couples married with Chinese brides as a policy-affected (treatment) group and the couples married with Southeast Asian brides as a policy-unaffected (control) group. The empirical results show that the interview policy has reduced the prevalence of false marriage by 10%-14%.