Entrepreneurship Experiences among Vietnamese Marriage Immigrant Women in Taiwan

Abstract

Since the 1990s, Taiwan has experienced growing numbers of commercially arranged marriages between Vietnamese women and socioeconomically disadvantaged Taiwanese men. Most Vietnamese marriage immigrant women proactively engage in the labor market due to the heavy financial burden of their Taiwanese and natal families. Employing a sociocultural and post‐structural feminist approach, this study draws from life‐story interviews of 13 married Vietnamese women to investigate the entrepreneurship experiences among Vietnamese marriage immigrant women in Taiwan. These women are pushed and pulled towards creating demanding micro‐entrepreneurships based on their self‐employed socialization, thereby fulfilling family obligations and achieving career goals. Targeting their host market, these women operate their businesses using Taiwanese customer networks and their institutionalized learning and sustainable resilience while negotiating self‐identity. Running entrepreneurships empowers these women, facilitating their selfidentity, social integration, family position within the boundaries of gender, family expectations, and business while they struggle with unexpected challenges. Clearly, these individuals and their significant others, homeland culture and socialization, and their life experiences and positions in Taiwan shape these immigrant women’s businesses and their sense of meaning. This study extends the feminist perspective of this topic, focusing on the sustainable agency and sense of competence of female marriage immigrants.