It has been around three decades since Taiwan government recognized marriage immigration. The number of immigrant women as of the March of 2020 reached 561,001 persons, comprising 2.4% of the overall population in Taiwan. The distribution of immigrant women were composed by Mainland China (62.41%), Vietnam (19.61%), Indonesia (5.47%), Hong Kong and Macao (3.12%), Philippines (1.84%), Thailand (1.66%) and others (5.99%) [1]. According to statistics released by the National Immigration Agency in 2020, the number of divorced immigrant women over the past 5 years reached 52,878 persons with an average marriage–divorce ratio of 1.95, meaning that one out of every 1.95 pairs of transnational marriages may end in divorce, which is markedly lower than that for Taiwanese women (2.70) [1]. The high divorce rate for immigrant women highlights the adjustment problems that exist in transnational marriages.
Marital adjustment refers to the happiness and satisfaction perceived by the husband and wife toward their marriage [2] and exhibits a significant correlation with physical and mental health [3]. For the majority of immigrant families in Taiwan, the marriage between husband and wife is typically facilitated by a marriage agency. Such fast and transnational marriage can be characterized by couples being not acquainted with each other before, having large age gaps, speaking different languages, existing cultural and background disparities, having low socioeconomic status, and embracing distinct goals with the marriage (husband mainly for carry on his ancestral line and wife for providing her family of origin financial supply in chief) [4]. Without an emotional foundation, couples in this type of marriage showed insufficient interaction and lacked of cohesion, intimacy, and dependability. Some immigrant women even experienced denigration, criticism, or verbal/physical aggression from their husbands [5]. As a result, adjusting to marriage and family life becomes more difficult for immigrant women than their native-born counterparts. This is especially the case because immigrant women married to Taiwan alone and they barely have social support from outside the new family. According to the marital discord model of depression [6], the aforementioned disadvantages emerged in transnational marriages may increase the risk of depression in immigrant women by increasing stress and decreasing support.
Newly married immigrant women in Taiwan are not only required to adjust to their marriage, but they also experience numerous types of acculturative stresses. Acculturation refers to the process in which immigrant groups choose to retain their original cultural qualities, such as language, lifestyle, and cultural identity and attitudes, when exposed to another culture, or to transition away from these qualities to fit the new culture [7]. The Taiwanese society is a paternalistic society based on Confucian culture. Families in nonurban regions typically maintain united or compromised family constitution types, forcing the majority of immigrant women to learn at least two common languages (Taiwanese and Mandarin), familiarize themselves with the complicated social etiquette and norms of a Confucian society, cook Taiwanese meals for the entire family, share the burden of family finances, and bear and educate children. These women often demonstrate maladjustment to acculturative stresses when social network support is unavailable [8], which further results in mental illnesses such as depression [9, 10].
Language proficiency and years in host country are key indicators when measuring acculturation [9, 11]. These factors not only correlate with depressive tendency, but also determine marital adjustment [11]. The findings of a U.S. survey conducted on immigrant women from the former Soviet Union suggested that depressive tendency decreases with an increase in English proficiency [7]. Similar results were proposed in a study on Korean immigrants in the United States [9], suggesting that lack of English proficiency is correlated with depression. Moreover, language proficiency influences communication quality, and poor communication may result in conflicts, which deteriorate marriage relationships [12]. Language preference is also a representation of ethnic identity and the basis of trust. Immigrant women who frequently speak a language that is unfamiliar to the spouse or spouse’s family members may cause them to feel that these women do not identify with Taiwan, and may even lead them to suspect that these women are dissatisfied with or are concealing certain matters. Thus, ethnic identity and trust are the factors that diminish marriage relationship satisfaction. When immigrant women begin to demonstrate maladjustment to their marriage, they immediately become marginalized entities [13] that are prone to mental illnesses such as depression [14].
In addition to language proficiency, years in Taiwan is another measure of acculturation. Gonidakis et al. [15] asserted that short duration of stay and lack of a steady job negatively influences the mental health of immigrant groups. Newly married immigrant women are required to live for a relatively lengthy period in Taiwan to obtain citizenship (four to eight years). However, numerous factors, such as language barriers, low education level, and family disapproval, impede immigrant women from securing full-time employment in Taiwan, which consequently hinders their adaptation to Taiwanese culture and reduces the opportunities for them to expand their social networks. Furthermore, the majority of immigrant women are required to financially support both their family in Taiwan and that in their country of origin [16], and are expected to bear children as soon as possible. Therefore, the life stress that these women experience during their initial years in Taiwan is a key factor influencing the prevalence of mental problems. As their stay in Taiwan lengthens, numerous types of stress are steadily mitigated, and immigrant women are gradually able to confront and solve the life stress they experience. As these women adjust to the new language, eating habits, and living habits, their mental health gradually improves [17].
Acculturation is not only associated with mental health but also affects marital adjustment among immigrant women. Mona et al. [18] found that longer residence in the U.S. was associated with grater acculturation to U.S. society, but with reduced family satisfaction, a measure highly correlated with marital adjustment. This finding implied that good acculturation may be helpful for developing marital adjustment, which further decreases the risk of occurrence of depressive symptoms, and vice versa. As such, divorced immigrant women suffered from a higher incidence of depressive symptoms than their married counterparts [19]. Results of Mexican immigrant couples showed that the wives' marital discontent was shown to be uniquely vulnerable to their own depressive symptoms and marital negativity [20]. Moreover, the marital satisfaction can be a powerful buffer against various stress life events [11].This information clearly suggests that although the depressive symptoms exhibited by immigrant women are correlated to their acculturative stresses, this correlation is likely mediated by their marital adjustment. Thus, when immigrant women experience acculturative stresses, specific adjustment problems indicate that these stresses are associated with poor marital adjustment and increased risks of depressive symptoms. Therefore, the present study examined immigrant women in Taiwan to determine the mediational effect that marital adjustment has on the correlation between acculturation stress and depressive symptoms.