How common are marriages between overseas Pakistanis and Pakistan-based spouses?
Last reviewed:
Direct answer
There is no current global statistic for the share of overseas Pakistanis who marry a Pakistan-based spouse. Immigration departments count visas using country-specific categories, Pakistan’s emigration data counts workers, and diaspora population tables do not record where spouses lived before marriage. British Pakistani research shows that transnational marriage has been significant in some communities, but those findings cannot produce a worldwide percentage. A defensible estimate would require linked marriage and migration records by destination, generation, gender and year, with a clear definition of “Pakistan-based.”
Sources used
Conceptualising integration: a framework for empirical research, taking marriage migration as a case study
Comparative Migration Studies
Integration framework drawing on research with British Pakistani Muslim and British Indian Sikh marriage-migration families. Not a 2020 national Pakistani marriage survey.Source checked:
View sourceDrivers of Cousin Marriage among British Pakistanis
Human Heredity
Review of kinship and marriage patterns in British Pakistani communities, including Bradford. Historical, community-specific evidence, not a current global diaspora rate.Source checked:
View sourceInternational Migrant Stock 2024
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division
Comparable estimates of international migrants by origin and destination; migrant stock differs from annual worker registrations and broad diaspora estimates.View source