Mail order brides

Well more and more people are meeting with online dating, so if you just add an international flavour... That said the economic differences are the issue when it comes to imbalance. It would depend on the cultural differences too I suppose. I would imagine there would be fewer with say a Russian and Irish pairing than a Thai and Irish pairing. The silly age differences are another major issue. And educational differences too.

I'm sure such relationships can and do work out. I've known a few down the years and a couple did work out well. In those cases though, the people had less than a ten year age gap and were about the same level in looks and education. I recall reading somewhere that in the US at least these "mail order" relationships were less likely to divorce.

I would depend on the women's background culture. EG in certain areas and demographics in Russia women outnumber the men and are better educated and early death and alcoholism is a major problem in the men(I gather Ukraine can be similar), so the pool of available local men of a similar background and stature is quite small and much smaller than in say Ireland. I could well understand a Russian woman looking farther afield for potential partners. It's less of an economic thing than a practical thing. Thailand would be very different on that score. So while you might find well educated "middle class" Russian women with careers signing up to local marriage agencies, well educated middle class Thai women sighing up would be far less likely as they would have much more choice locally.

The problem then is the men who sign up for such agencies. Of the documentaries I've seen down the years and of the couples I've known locally, the men were, well, not to put too fine a point on it, a dead loss in the local dating scene(except for the two I knew were the marriages worked. Big shock). If you see any of the documentaries on this subject, the guys involved are either decrepit, major uggos, or social misfits to some degree, or all of the above. The pool of halfway decent looking, well sorted in life and socially aware 35 year old guys are very thin on the ground it seems.