Studies on international marriage examining the motives in women’s marriage and migration decisions have indicated the limitations of the distinction between categories of migrants for marriage and migrant workers. Gender ideologies and immigration policies have accounted for women’s diverse motivations of transnational marriage; however, studies have focused on women in their first marriage, leaving those of remarried women, whose marital and migration decisions are often linked to the welfare and life trajectories of their children underexamined. Systematic investigations of institutional factors other than immigration policies in both receiving and sending countries, particularly post-Socialist societies, that affect their marital and migration decisions, remain limited. This article highlights the significance of life course, families, and gendered institutions in understanding the migratory flows of remarried immigrant wives. Based on in-depth interviews with remarried Mainland Chinese women in Hong Kong, the study argues that the effects of the labour market, local patriarchy, kinship system, and migration control mechanisms in post-Socialist China and Hong Kong on their remarital decisions vary depending on women’s life courses. Their decisions are embedded in their most salient family relationships, particularly young and adolescent biological children, which are interconnected within specific socio-historical contexts. The study contributes to research on gender and migration by demonstrating the heterogeneity of marriage migrants who are not merely wives or workers but also mothers of diverse life courses and the differential effects of gendered institutions on their remarital and migration decisions.

The extant literature on family-related migration has examined the civic stratification of the right to family reunification of citizens and non-citizens and the citizenship rights of their reunited family members. However, civic stratification amongst immigrant family members has received less attention. Accordingly, the current study highlights the significance of immigration status and social reproduction in the hierarchisation of the residency and social rights of Mainland Chinese children and spouses within cross-border families in Hong Kong, particularly since the policy changes in 2003. This study asserts that children are valued as prospective contributory citizens, and thus, they are afforded preferential treatment over spouses, who are mostly women, whose contribution to the reproduction of family and society are undervalued by central and local states.

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As the first study on the marital stability of transnational remarriages, this study contributes to two bodies of literature, namely, marriage migration and stepfamilies, by examining the role of stepchildren and common children in (de)stabilising marital relationships in cross‐border stepfamilies in Hong Kong. Studies have shown that intermarriages and remarriages are unstable, especially remarriages involving non‐shared children. Remarriages represent a significant proportion of transnational marriages. However, little is known about the role of immigrant stepchildren and common children at different life courses in shaping marital dynamics and stability in international remarriages. This study focuses on cross‐border marriages that involve children from a previous relationship. It adopts a life course perspective and uses in‐depth interviews with lower‐class mainland Chinese immigrant mothers with children from previous relationships and common children with their Hong Kong husbands. It found that children in these families played three roles in stabilising or jeopardising remarriage: immigrant stepchildren as catalysts, common children as buffers and husband's children as gatekeepers. This study contributes to the literature by highlighting the important role of migration in stepfamily dynamics, the diversity of transnational stepfamilies and the need to go beyond the conjugal dyad to understand marital dynamics and stability in cross‐border stepfamilies.

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