《TAIPEI TIMES》 Foreign spouses account for 18.5 percent of marriages

The Ministry of the Interior’s logo is pictured at its offices in Taipei in an undated photograph. Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times

/ Staff writer, with CNA Foreign spouses accounted for 18.5 percent of all marriages in Taiwan last year, the highest share over the past decade, despite the number of foreign spouses falling by 2,554 from a year earlier, the Ministry of the Interior said.

The number of registered marriages peaked at 148,000 in 2016 before falling to 104,000 last year, down 15.2 percent from 2024, the latest Statistical Bulletin released by the ministry showed.

Of the total, 85,042 marriages were between Taiwanese nationals, accounting for 81.5 percent, while 19,334 involved one spouse who was a foreign national, accounting for 18.5 percent.

The crude marriage rate stood at 4.5 per 1,000 people last year, the data showed.

The number of marriages involving a foreign spouse stood at 20,359 people in 2016, accounting for 13.8 percent of all registered marriages.

The figure peaked at 22,469 in 2023, representing 17.9 percent of all registered marriages. Although the number fell to 19,334 last year, the proportion of marriages involving a foreign spouse rose to a new nine-year high of 18.5 percent of all registered marriages.

Among foreign spouses last year, those from Southeast Asia accounted for the largest group at 9,596, representing 49.6 percent of foreign spouses and 9.2 percent of all marriages.

Spouses from China numbered 5,170, accounting for 26.7 percent of foreign spouses and 5 percent of all marriages.

Excluding spouses from China, Hong Kong and Macau, Vietnamese nationals were the largest group at 6,427, followed by Americans at 880 and Indonesians at 821, the data showed.

Regionally, northern Taiwan recorded the largest number of foreign spouses at 9,806, accounting for 50.7 percent of the total.

Southern Taiwan followed with 4,578, or 23.7 percent, while central Taiwan had 4,499, or 23.3 percent. Eastern Taiwan and the Kinmen-Lienchiang （Matsu） regions recorded 296 and 155 foreign spouses, respectively.

The data also showed the gender ratio among foreign spouses rose to 43.5 percent from 31.8 in 2016, indicating that the gap between male and female foreign spouses has narrowed.

The gender ratio measures the number of men per 100 women. A ratio above 100 indicates there are more men than women.

There were 13,471 female foreign spouses last year, accounting for 69.7 percent of the total, compared with 5,863 male foreign spouses, or 30.3 percent, the ministry said.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES