If you are or have been in an International Marriage

[Turboguy 6]

But the problem is I just don't think you will find that many people on this site involved with an international marriage.

Erm.....aren't all of us here involved with international marriages?

It would seem to me that you are right as can be.

Methinks the bias in this study is clear!

ETA: If the International dating service charges a fee, then it should fall under IMBRA.

Are we talking about dating services such as Match.com or Eharmony, which have members both in the U.S. and in other countries (most of these have some sort of membership fee)? Or is some other type of service meant?

As for "inciting" feminazis and the term "Mail Order Bride," I think both of those are signs of a poor research methodolgy.

To fall under IMBRA an agency has to have 50% of its business connecting American citizens with overseas partners so places like Match.com and eHarmony escape the regulations. They also exempt free sites and religious organizations.

I can understand your disliking the MOB term and the feminazi term. I don't care for either much myself and had I set up the survey I would not have used either. I do think that part of it was to try to create something catchy, something recognizable and something those of us who strongly oppose IMBRA would rally to. Good choice of words or bad it is what they did and I know the people behind it and that they can do some good with this survey.

I have to say I am in the group of people who totally dislike IMBRA. I would eagerly support any effort to fix some of the problems. I will also agree that that are some good parts of it. For example background checks of the American Petitioner were never required. Only the Beneficiary had a criminal check so we did not import people who would be bad for America. I do think the Criminal background check of the Petitioner is a good thing BUT it should be part of the K-1 process not before you can even contact anyone. That is the same as if I went to a nightclub and saw a woman I wanted to dance with and was required to show her a certified copy of my criminal history first. As stupid as that sounds it would save far more lives than IMBRA but there would be a big outcry if they tried to make that a law. I see IMBRA as a step in the loss of our freedom as individuals. We have a Consitutional right to life, liberty and the persuit of happiness. What is more of a persuit of happiness than looking for a spouse even though sometimes it is far less happy than we dreamed when we searched.

I also oppose the 2 year lifetime limit on K-1's Real serial abusers of the K-1 process are as rare as hen's teeth. Why penalize those who make a mistake or two but really are trying hard to find a good wife or husband.

I am sure I would not be as passionate about IMBRA had I not been caught up in it personally. I had to file for a waver since I was a few months short of the 2 year waiting period and did not want to waste those few months. Then I ended up spending a half year in IMBRA caused name checks even though both of us had spotless records.

By the way, sorry to take so long to answer. I was travling and did not have much internet access until I returned today.

[Niels Bohr 72]

This survey is for mail order marriage. My marriage isn't considered mail-ordered.

[Turboguy 6]

This survey is for mail order marriage. My marriage isn't considered mail-ordered.

Mine was and gee was I exceted when DHL delivered the big package. I had to be awfully careful with the box cutter when I opened it though.

[lucyrich 20]

To be effective, this survey MUST collect a very large number of respondents. To accomplish that, they wanted the widest possible coverage.

No, the people doing the survey need to take a course in statistics 101.

To get accurate results, a survey needs to take an unbiased random sample of the target population. It doesn't necessarily need to be a huge sample. A relatively small truly random sample is statistically more accurate than a huge self selected sample. If you want an accurate survey to determine US Citizen's opinions on gun control, you don't pass out flyers for the survey during an NRA chapter meeting. Getting more and more NRA members to respond to the survey doesn't make the answers more accurately represent the opinions of the US population as a whole.

If the survey participants select themselves, you shouldn't expect accurate results. If the questions show bias that could cause some participants to quit the survey in the middle because they disagree with the survey's agenda, the accuracy of the survey will be even worse.

Are they trying to find the success rate of all international marriages? Or just the success rate of mail order bride marriages? Or are they trying to find the rate of success of all international marriages so they can use that in an advertisement for a mail order bride company to show how well mail order bride marriages work out?

And how do you determine whether the marriages are going to work out? Most people here on VisaJourney haven't been married very long, few for much more than five years, many for less than two years. No survey of VJers could possibly give much useful information about how likely the marriages are to last in the long term.

[JULIAFERNO 0]

Why do they have to call it a "mail order bride" survey? IMHO that's a little bit demeaning to the many nice women that have married US citizens, and nice guys too..And this is supposedly from a university study?

Yes, very politically incorrect. Not to mention, MOST international marriages are not "mail order bride" scenarios. I have reason to believe that this is not a very valid study being that the title of the survey alone is not ethical! Are these real researchers?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

To be effective, this survey MUST collect a very large number of respondents. To accomplish that, they wanted the widest possible coverage.

No, the people doing the survey need to take a course in statistics 101.

To get accurate results, a survey needs to take an unbiased random sample of the target population. It doesn't necessarily need to be a huge sample. A relatively small truly random sample is statistically more accurate than a huge self selected sample. If you want an accurate survey to determine US Citizen's opinions on gun control, you don't pass out flyers for the survey during an NRA chapter meeting. Getting more and more NRA members to respond to the survey doesn't make the answers more accurately represent the opinions of the US population as a whole.

If the survey participants select themselves, you shouldn't expect accurate results. If the questions show bias that could cause some participants to quit the survey in the middle because they disagree with the survey's agenda, the accuracy of the survey will be even worse.

Are they trying to find the success rate of all international marriages? Or just the success rate of mail order bride marriages? Or are they trying to find the rate of success of all international marriages so they can use that in an advertisement for a mail order bride company to show how well mail order bride marriages work out?

And how do you determine whether the marriages are going to work out? Most people here on VisaJourney haven't been married very long, few for much more than five years, many for less than two years. No survey of VJers could possibly give much useful information about how likely the marriages are to last in the long term.

Excellent post.

[Chica Yeyé 41]

To be effective, this survey MUST collect a very large number of respondents. To accomplish that, they wanted the widest possible coverage.

No, the people doing the survey need to take a course in statistics 101.

To get accurate results, a survey needs to take an unbiased random sample of the target population. It doesn't necessarily need to be a huge sample. A relatively small truly random sample is statistically more accurate than a huge self selected sample. If you want an accurate survey to determine US Citizen's opinions on gun control, you don't pass out flyers for the survey during an NRA chapter meeting. Getting more and more NRA members to respond to the survey doesn't make the answers more accurately represent the opinions of the US population as a whole.

If the survey participants select themselves, you shouldn't expect accurate results. If the questions show bias that could cause some participants to quit the survey in the middle because they disagree with the survey's agenda, the accuracy of the survey will be even worse.

Are they trying to find the success rate of all international marriages? Or just the success rate of mail order bride marriages? Or are they trying to find the rate of success of all international marriages so they can use that in an advertisement for a mail order bride company to show how well mail order bride marriages work out?

And how do you determine whether the marriages are going to work out? Most people here on VisaJourney haven't been married very long, few for much more than five years, many for less than two years. No survey of VJers could possibly give much useful information about how likely the marriages are to last in the long term.

Excellent post.

Ditto. I also have my reservations since no self-respecting researcher would use an off-campus site to pull this ####### . Research with human subjects is monitored by Research Ethics Boards --- this seems academically shady, at best.

[JULIAFERNO 0]

To be effective, this survey MUST collect a very large number of respondents. To accomplish that, they wanted the widest possible coverage.

No, the people doing the survey need to take a course in statistics 101.

To get accurate results, a survey needs to take an unbiased random sample of the target population. It doesn't necessarily need to be a huge sample. A relatively small truly random sample is statistically more accurate than a huge self selected sample. If you want an accurate survey to determine US Citizen's opinions on gun control, you don't pass out flyers for the survey during an NRA chapter meeting. Getting more and more NRA members to respond to the survey doesn't make the answers more accurately represent the opinions of the US population as a whole.

If the survey participants select themselves, you shouldn't expect accurate results. If the questions show bias that could cause some participants to quit the survey in the middle because they disagree with the survey's agenda, the accuracy of the survey will be even worse.

Are they trying to find the success rate of all international marriages? Or just the success rate of mail order bride marriages? Or are they trying to find the rate of success of all international marriages so they can use that in an advertisement for a mail order bride company to show how well mail order bride marriages work out?

And how do you determine whether the marriages are going to work out? Most people here on VisaJourney haven't been married very long, few for much more than five years, many for less than two years. No survey of VJers could possibly give much useful information about how likely the marriages are to last in the long term.

Excellent post.

Ditto. I also have my reservations since no self-respecting researcher would use an off-campus site to pull this ####### . Research with human subjects is monitored by Research Ethics Boards --- this seems academically shady, at best.

I am currently taking a graduate level research methods course...perhaps I should bring this in as a poor example of a research study and get extra credit

[Chica Yeyé 41]

To be effective, this survey MUST collect a very large number of respondents. To accomplish that, they wanted the widest possible coverage.

No, the people doing the survey need to take a course in statistics 101.

To get accurate results, a survey needs to take an unbiased random sample of the target population. It doesn't necessarily need to be a huge sample. A relatively small truly random sample is statistically more accurate than a huge self selected sample. If you want an accurate survey to determine US Citizen's opinions on gun control, you don't pass out flyers for the survey during an NRA chapter meeting. Getting more and more NRA members to respond to the survey doesn't make the answers more accurately represent the opinions of the US population as a whole.

If the survey participants select themselves, you shouldn't expect accurate results. If the questions show bias that could cause some participants to quit the survey in the middle because they disagree with the survey's agenda, the accuracy of the survey will be even worse.

Are they trying to find the success rate of all international marriages? Or just the success rate of mail order bride marriages? Or are they trying to find the rate of success of all international marriages so they can use that in an advertisement for a mail order bride company to show how well mail order bride marriages work out?

And how do you determine whether the marriages are going to work out? Most people here on VisaJourney haven't been married very long, few for much more than five years, many for less than two years. No survey of VJers could possibly give much useful information about how likely the marriages are to last in the long term.

Excellent post.

Ditto. I also have my reservations since no self-respecting researcher would use an off-campus site to pull this ####### . Research with human subjects is monitored by Research Ethics Boards --- this seems academically shady, at best.

I am currently taking a graduate level research methods course...perhaps I should bring this in as a poor example of a research study and get extra credit

I hear you!!!! And you would get it... and even some kudos from the prof!

[Ban Hammer 13,337]

This survey is for mail order marriage. My marriage isn't considered mail-ordered.

Mine was and gee was I exceted when DHL delivered the big package. I had to be awfully careful with the box cutter when I opened it though.

[Turboguy 6]

There are some interesting points raised here. One thing I can say for sure is that there is no intention of this being used to give international marriage agencies advertising amunition. If you have read some of their websites and advertisments they alreay have enough claims they make and most are to say the very least not realistic.

This survey is targeting a broad number of people and it is not "just" relying on the post I made on VJ for input. Hopefully the many sources they are hoping to tap will balance things out a bit but I will agree that most people on VJ are either prepairing to get married or have been married a short time. I hang out at a few other forums involving international marriages and the same is true there. A few have been married for perhaps 10 years but most are in the 4 year range or less.

LucyRich, I can't disagree with the NRA example but I think to a degree it depends on what you want to measure. If you wanted statisics for guns in the general population targeting NRA members would produce bad results. If you wanted to measure number and types of guns owned by NRA members it is a different situation. Since this is targeting international marriages trying to find people involved in an international marriage doesn't strike me as creating a bias.

There just aren't a lot of good statistic's out there and maybe this will have some flaws but those who created it hope it can provide better information than is available currently. Since there is almost no real statistics out there it will be an improvment, at least that is the hopes.

[Niels Bohr 72]

You haven't gotten enough sample or listings of unhappy marriages that could give a reasonable observation.

[Turboguy 6]

I think that is a valid point. I think a lot of the guys who marry someone from overseas and have a disaster on thier hands just vanish into the woodwork and this survey will never find them.

[Turboguy 6]

I just wanted to thank everyone who took the time to complete the survey. The number of completed surveys has now passed the 1000 mark. If you have been in an international marriage and have not particpated I hope you will do so. Thanks again.

[ChuckandOlga 0]

For the most part this pole is for people who have married women from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and so on. The main place of gathering for this pole is from the http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/ boards. I personal do not trust this pole because it pretty much does not have anything to do with the many different circumstances for the many of people who are applying for different Visa's into America. What this pole is looking for is a broad spectrum of people married but has nothing to do with this forum it is based upon men marring women from Eastern Europe to up the stats broadening them to have better stats. This pole would not by any chance have anything to do with the reporter that wants to do the story on MOB’s now would it? Turboguy what member of the Russian women discussion board is conducting this pole? Jack Bragg? Khersongirls? Who?

I put no faith in many of the people on the Russian woman discussion boards many are pretty wacked out to begin with.

Ex-member of www.russianwomendiscussion.com and for good reason.

XD40