That's the cold hard financial side of it, but there are also compelling social and emotional reasons why a person from the developing world (of either gender) might want to marry somebody from the developed world.
1. Gender equality. Take, for example, a US man who believes women should not get to vote. By US standards, he's a dinosaur, a throwback, a chauvinist of historical proportions. But transpose that viewpoint to China, where nobody (of either gender) gets to vote. Suddenly he doesn't seem so bad. Given that even less sanguine forms of gender discrimination are still very much alive and well in parts of developing nations, a "sexist" first-world citizen may seem by comparison to be a paragon of equal treatment in the third world.
2. Legal protections. In China, domestic violence is forbidden and divorces should include financial support for the less-qualified party (most usually the wife, owing to historical underemployment of women). However, the actual enforcement of these laws is patchy at best, and it's not unheard-of for a husband to have an affair, move all of his bank accounts elsewhere, and then divorce his hapless wife. The wife now typically has no resources to her name, and often loses control of the child as well. In the West, civil rule of law is strong enough that such blatant disregard for a court judgment would be quickly punished.
3. Personal freedoms. Of course, America is just as prone to mainstream or majority-mentality cultural rules as any other nation. But the West generally affords far greater personal liberties than traditional Confucianist countries, where each individual identified more with their family, their village, their company, and their nation. If you don't fit in in America, you might get awkwardness with the neighbors. In developing nations, you might get family vendettas that result in violence. China also has a one-child policy intended to reduce its population growth, but this translates to a lopsided family structure where four grandparents and two parents have only one child to care for (and in future to support them - a huge problem in a nation where social security or retirement savings support institutions are still nascent). As my anecdotes of Adventures with SmallMom point out, in America a Chinese-born woman can have two sons to tease and torment for decades instead of just the one.
On a serious note, my current law practice's most lucrative source of income is from immigrants seeking to come to the US by investing money in US businesses - the "EB-5" program. This requires a minimum investment of half a million USD (and more often is a full million) and they have no guarantee of recouping that money. Yet they're willing to sink those funds in for a quick green card and a two-year process for full permanent resident status. It's also worth noting that the vast majority of these applications are coming from China. Apparently, in China, it's easy enough to
make a million USD to your name... but finding somewhere safe to store it - for your retirement, for your parents' support in their old age, for your kid's college education - that's the hard part. With a weak rule of law and a government that can arbitrarily take away everything you own at any moment, the Chinese millionaires are fleeing their nation in droves to find a more secure society for their wealth and their families.
From anecdotal evidence, apparently they also have a cultural mandate to find the next Chosen One, Grey Warden, Vault Dweller, or Revolutionary Son of the East who is of unclear but crucial importance to their society. Current evidence suggests this may be a hapless junior associate of US birth and Chinese descent, whose rectitude and probity must be repeatedly tested by diverse parties, with the ceremonial question and response examination of the Five Auspicious Heavenly Inquiries:
- What is thy relationship status?
- Be thine orientation true as the arrow's flight, or recurved as the bow's tempering?
- What is thine Chinese zodiac animal?
- Verily, hang on one second. Be that as it may, then what is thine age?
- Duly noted, and solemnly so. Hast thou any younger brothers and be they striking of visage, noble of comport, true in both thought and deed, and single moreover?
Junior associate's face:
