Fifteen years ago, when I began researching the international dating industry, few people treated the topic seriously. “Mail-order bride” was largely a punch line — an old stereotype about lonely men and poor women moving from Eastern Europe, Asia or elsewhere to marry men in the United States.
Today that dynamic looks different in form though familiar in substance. In 2025, some men travel abroad calling themselves “passport bros” and even promote the lifestyle on social media. This rebranding reflects longstanding patterns: social and economic change reshapes how people seek intimacy and negotiate gender across borders, a theme I examine in my 2025 book, Economies of Gender.
When the world feels chaotic, some people turn toward traditional gender roles as a source of apparent stability — and that often drives cross-border relationships.
Old industry, new look
The phrase “mail-order bride” goes back to the 19th century, when so-called frontier brides answered advertisements and left the East Coast to marry men in the American West. After the Civil War, some women saw marrying sight unseen as a route to security, and that narrative persists in Western novels and films.
The contemporary international matchmaking business took shape in the 1970s, when catalogs of Philippine women’s photographs and addresses were marketed to American men. Men and women would be pen pals, and men sometimes traveled to meet prospective spouses. Scholars disagree on how to characterize these practices; some see them as a form of trafficking, while others view them through different lenses.
Those catalogs appeared as more U.S. women entered paid employment and gained financial independence. Some men searched abroad for partners they believed would embrace more traditional domestic roles and prioritize family life. Over subsequent decades, declines in stable, well-paid manufacturing jobs further challenged some men’s sense of being breadwinners.
By the 2010s the catalog model migrated online, evolving into a global industry once estimated in the billions of dollars. Today the market takes many forms: most activity occurs on websites and apps, with men paying for messaging or access while women generally do not. Agencies still offer in-person tours for male clients, and there are higher-end personalized matchmaking services as well.
From taboo to televised
What was once stigmatized has been normalized in part by reality television. Shows like TLC’s “90 Day Fiancé,” which debuted in 2014, turned international dating into a lucrative entertainment franchise. The series follows couples navigating the K-1 fiancé visa, which allows a partner entry to the U.S. only if the couple marries within 90 days; if the wedding does not happen, the foreign partner must return home.
Many on-screen couples met face-to-face by chance, but a significant number connected through online dating or language platforms. The programs frequently dramatize family and friends accusing foreign partners of pursuing marriage primarily for immigration benefits. Viewers may tune in for conflict or romance, yet the stories often reflect broader patterns: relationships shaped by uneven economic circumstances, with women exchanging domestic, emotional and sexual labor for financial security.
Rise of the “passport bros”
In recent years the old mail-order model has been recast by younger, more diverse men who identify as “passport bros.” Compared with earlier commercial clients, these men are often younger and more likely to be men of color. Many do not pay for formal matchmaking; instead they travel independently and use free apps like Tinder to meet local women, frequently in countries such as Colombia, Brazil and the Dominican Republic.
Passport bros describe seeking women abroad who they perceive as more traditionally gendered than Western partners. In interviews I conducted between 2010 and 2022, American men often complained that U.S. women’s career focus undermined their self-image as providers. My fieldwork in Ukraine, Colombia and the Philippines shows that many men who pursue overseas relationships are motivated by more than romantic interest or cultural curiosity. They are responding to a transformed economic landscape in which women’s financial autonomy has unsettled traditional male roles. For some men, traveling overseas is a way to reclaim a sense of control and find partnerships that reaffirm masculine identity.
Across interviews, men expressed feeling overlooked in the U.S. dating market yet empowered by the choices their relative wealth afforded abroad. One man on a romance tour in Ukraine told me in 2012, “I am here to exchange my financial stability for some Ukrainian woman’s youth and beauty, and I am OK with that.” Such blunt exchanges highlight how material inequality, desire and gender ideals intersect.
Appeal of “tradition”
The pattern I observe across settings points to a broader dynamic: anxiety often fuels a turn toward traditionalism. What looks like a return to the past is frequently an adaptation to present conditions. Romance tours, reality-TV exposure and passport-bro travel all show how people use intimate relationships to navigate economic instability. Gendered roles can be a means to reimpose order and a coherent identity when social and economic circumstances feel precarious.
Over the past two decades rising inflation, stagnant wages and a shortage of affordable housing have left many, especially younger people, feeling economically squeezed. The COVID-19 pandemic deepened inequalities, pushed millions out of work and intensified unpaid caregiving burdens, particularly for women. In times of uncertainty, societies often revert to familiar narratives. Traditional gender scripts — the dependable male provider and the nurturing homemaker — offer the illusion of stability even when they reinforce inequality.
As a sociologist, I study these dynamics not only to explain dating trends but to trace how inequality is reproduced through intimate life. Until society addresses stagnant wages, rising costs and eroding social safety nets, nostalgia for a clear gender hierarchy is likely to persist. In that hierarchy, men expect women’s labor and women hope for economic security — a bargain often framed as romance.
Julia Meszaros is an associate professor of sociology at Texas A&M University–Commerce.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.
