Abstract
This paper examines the social factors that influence individuals' attitudes toward Taiwan's immigration policies. Since the early 1990s, Taiwan has witnessed the number of its "bride immigrants," mainly from China and Vietnam, increase rapidly, thus drawing much attention and concern from policy makers and ordinary citizens. Based on data from a phone survey conducted in 2004, this paper finds (1) ethnicity and national identity both have significant effects on people's attitudes toward immigration policies for bride immigrants emanating from China and Southeast Asia; (2) party support and ethnic bias affect people's attitudes toward immigration policies for Chinese bride immigrants, but not for those from Southeast Asian countries; and (3) social context and cross-group contacts have little effect on people's attitudes regarding this issue. This paper shows that people's attitudes about social policies in Taiwan are shaped mainly by partisan competition and political rhetoric, instead of their economic self-interest and crossgroup contacts.