Over the years, there has been a significant increase in the popularity of international travel, which is not surprising considering how common the global village concept is. Increased migration for economic and business purposes has led to a greater acceptance and tolerance of cultural diversity, which has facilitated more contact. Marriages between people of different nationalities were certain to occur in such a situation. As a result, nations that granted citizenship via marriage were unavoidably impacted by these worldwide developments.
This is especially relevant given the focus being placed right now on the idea of family reunification. A key component of immigration integration policy has been the strong emphasis on family unity. The ability to live as equal citizens with one’s spouse is granted by marriage, allowing them to start a future together. Countries are constantly assessed according to the policies they have in place to make migration simple and family integration easier.
Globally, the number of citizens acquired via marriage is increasing. The US authorized 188,200 spouses’ naturalizations in FY 2023. Spouses made up 21.4% of the country’s record-breaking number of naturalizations among US citizens’ immediate relatives. Similar increases in mixed-nationality marriages have been noted in Switzerland, where 12,000 such unions, or 34.2% of all unions in 2020, were recorded by the Federal Statistics Office. In the UK, 25,854 permits for naturalization by marriage were made in total in 2020.
Countries in Central, East, and Southeast Asia are also experiencing an increasing number of foreign marriages. In their search for a foreign marriage, almost 3.5 million men and women have created online profiles on different platforms. The trend of non-Bangladeshi women travelling to Bangladesh to meet and marry men they had met online was widely reported in Bangladeshi media in 2019 and 2020. In Singapore, transnational couples (marriages involving citizens and non-citizens) made up over a third of citizen marriages in 2022, up from 29% in the previous year.
