Labour Crossings in Southeast Asia: Linking Historical and Contemporary Labour Migration
Southeast Asia was, and continues to be, a major destination of mass long-distance labor migrations. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries labor migration from China and India to the region was a defining feature of Asian globalization. Asian migration also approximated European transatlantic migration; it was consistent with the development of export production and industrialization in Europe and impacted on Southeast Asian economies and societies. Migration was largely unrestricted and led to settlement by immigrant communities and the creation of plural societies in colonial territories. Since the 1980s Southeast Asia has re-emerged as a major player in global migration movements and the scale, diversity and significance of migration flows has grown exponentially. The people who now cross international borders move mainly for economic reasons, or are forced to move for a variety of reasons, including displacement by wars. In the main Southeast Asian destination countries—Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand—foreign workers comprise between 15-30 percent of the labor force and their share is rising. Contemporary flows also comprise illegal movements and Southeast Asian states are striving to control their frontiers through evolving border strategies.
Labour migration trends and policy challenges in Southeast Asia
Labour migration in Southeast Asia since the 1970s and 1980s must be understood as an integral part of the post-colonial new geographies of migration. The scope and scale of transnational movements have grown rapidly and major states like Malaysia and Thailand between them currently host about 70 per cent of the estimated 13.5 million migrant workers in the region. Singapore's foreign labour force accounts for 25 per cent of the country's workforce. Two phenomena characterize these labour movements. Like labour-importing Western democracies, the major Southeast Asian labour-importing countries rely on the guest worker program to solve their labour shortage problems. They regulate immigration through elaborate administrative frameworks that are focussed on border control while brokerage firms and labour recruiters carry out recruitment, transportation and placement of migrant workers. These countries' immigration policies also often provide incentives for skilled workers, boost circular migration flows among low-skilled workers, and include severe penalties for unauthorised migrants. Additionally, comparisons between these countries point to patterns of convergence among them. This paper explores migration trends in the post-colonial geography of migration against the backdrop of growing regionalism and the development of regional migration systems and migration corridors. It also examines the "new world domestic order" and the development of gendered migration linkages that have resulted in the expansion of the domestic work sector and care-giving migration.
Migration Matters in the Asia-Pacific Region: Immigration Frameworks, Knowledge Workers and National Policies
In the past three decades the Asia-Pacific region has experienced a major wave of immigration despite tighter migration policies and better border controls. Southeast Asia has been prominent in this change, with some countries being important sources and destinations of skilled and unskilled migrants. Australia has also increased its migration quotas, particularly the skilled migration intake. The emergence of new regional migration patterns, the fast growth in the demand for knowledge workers and skilled migrants in specific occupational categories, and the creation of subregional labour markets are all manifestations of the scale and diversity of recent migratory movements in the region. Key factors accounting for these developments include disparities in economic growth; income and poverty levels between countries; labour shortages arising from demographic transformations; structural change in labour supply; and the role of social networks and the migration industry as drivers of migration.
Indian Labour, Labour Standards, and Workers' Health in Burma and Malaya, 1900-1940
Indian labour migration to Burma and Malaya in the late nineteenth century was an important dimension of British colonial rule in Southeast Asia and coincided with the region's greater integration into the international economy. Compared to the Chinese, Indians formed an important minority only in these states where they filled a critical need in the urban manufacturing sector (Burma) and the plantation sector (Malaya). Their importance declined after World War Two, both in absolute and comparative terms. There were fewer millionaires and traders among them and their emigration to these territories was largely regulated by law. Moreover, the specific political and economic relationship between the Colonial Office in London and these territories determined recruitment patterns and influenced employment relations and working conditions. In turn, these impacted on the living conditions and mortality suffered by workers and shaped the structure of health services.
Increasing Controls Stem the Tide of Migration Across Southeast Asia
Migration in Southeast Asia today is transforming cities and societies, labour market relations and national cultures. The regulatory capacities of nation states are also changing against the backdrop of the reformulation of national frontiers and construction of legislative instruments governing migration and citizenship. In this context, the issue and urgency of integration has become a major challenge facing these transforming societies.
Migration and Security: Political, Social and Economic Contexts of Migration
The current immigration debate in labour-importing countries such as Malaysia centres largely on whether migrants are an asset or a threat. On the one hand, migrant labour is an important economic asset in meeting labour shortages, keeping down labour costs and providing a range of skills not available locally. On the other, there are concerns that migrants put pressure on health and educational services and affect national security. It is also increasingly evident that many people move in disregard of the borders that delineate nations because they aspire to achieve a better life. This movement is perceived to undermine national structures since some migrants operate outside official channels and it is thus in local situations and contexts that the impact of migration is experienced, debated, and contested most directly. The current debate suggests that Southeast Asia is facing an important change of direction due to migration contributing to the reinvention and reconstruction of increasingly impenetrable borders. With the aim of contributing to this ongoing debate in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific region, the Malaysia and Singapore Society of Australia addressed these and other issues at its Fourteenth Colloquium in December 2006. The Colloquium theme - Boundaries and Shifting Sovereignties: Migration, Security and Regional Cooperation In Asia - was tackled from a variety of perspectives. Seven papers from the interdisciplinary colloquium were selected for this special issue and provide new insights into the debates around migration and security in the region. In this volume we first examine migration issues focussing on state and societal perceptions towards migrant workers in Malaysia, the migration-trafficking-refugee nexus and the role of the Jesuit Refugee Service, a faith-based organisation that works with refugee groups in the Asia-Pacific. Second, in the context of rethinking about borders, we examine the key issue of security and how Malaysia in particular deals with regional security issues and conflict at its borders with Thailand and the Philippines. The question of suicide bombers in Indonesia is also considered in the wider context of national and regional security.
Understanding Historical and Contemporary Labor Migration Patterns and Processes in Southeast Asia
From a temporal viewpoint, current labor migration movements in Southeast Asia typically replicate past foreign labor migrations, while labor processes continue to mirror the significance of political-economic relationships in the region. Historically, international labor migration in Southeast Asia is best understood from the perspective of the region's natural resources, demographic situation, and incorporation into the global economy. European imperialism after the 1870s, and the growth of the Atlantic economy were consistent with capitalist expansion and colonization of Southeast Asian states. Subsequently, these states became suppliers of mineral and other natural resources, and were also transformed by substantial waves of labor immigration, primarily from China and India. It is commonly assumed that the Asian migrants comprised only men, who journeyed either as forced or indentured workers to toil in Southeast Asia. This supposition ignores the migration of free men and women into the region. Furthermore, a majority of historians have also taken for granted that Asian migrations, like the Atlantic migrations, ended in 1914, following the onset of World War One. In fact Asian "colonial" migrations continued into the 1940s and also afterwards.
Comments on the World Health Organization Report of Commission on Social Determinants of Health - Final Report: Closing the gap in a generation
The Commission's underlying theme that improving health for all because it is a good thing in itself is commendable because we should 'get real' about what really matters – the implementation of social justice policies that will reduce health inequality within a relatively short period of time. Examples of policies that impact on people's socio-economic circumstances and will result in widespread health improvement include tax, housing and transport policies. Governments should ensure a living wage for workers, a reduction in work-related stress and a healthy life-balance. These policies are commensurate with the Millennium Development Goals. The body of evidence presented in the Report clearly demonstrates major and unacceptable levels of health inequity between, and within, countries. The Report also provides helpful and useful illustrations of some familiar themes and in establishing and explaining the connections between basic factors that are causing poor health and health inequities globally.
Economic Globalisation and the 'New' Labour Migration in Southeast Asia
The cross-border movement of people, associated with the increased integration of economies and ongoing changes in the international division of labour, forms an essential component of the globalisation process. A sharp increase in labour mobility has coincided with official recruitment agencies and private entrepreneurs providing all sorts of services to migrant workers in exchange for fees. Yet while trade and financial flows are welcomed by nations, labour flows raise concerns about possible influxes of both documented and illegal migrants, the potential erosion of national sovereignty; and, since 11 September 2001, fears of terrorism. This has resulted in more stringent immigration policies and border controls by the state. Migration has thus become a major domestic and international political issue, particularly for developed countries. Moreover, the issue continues to be debated mainly in the context of developed countries. Nevertheless, international migration (in response to global economic forces) within developing regions, such as Southeast Asia, is also an important phenomenon, and worthy of attention on its own. This chapter examines the changing labour demand patterns and labour supply in the context of increasing economic integration in the Southeast Asian region. It focuses on the economic disparities and structural interdependencies between source and destination countries; and the employment of unskilled contract workers, especially in Malaysia and Singapore. The chapter also makes the point that the institutionalisation of the migration process, particularly for unskilled labour, serves to create both a black market in migration and conditions conducive to human trafficking and exploitation.
The Impact of Railroads on the Malayan Economy, 1874-1941
This study will examine three aspects of railroad development in Malaya: first, the railroad as both a consumer and a transport agency; second, the specific role of the railways in contributing to the emergence of an extractive-colonial economy; and finally, the ways in which the railroad system led to the uneven distribution of capitalistic development in Malaya. It should be noted that parallel developments took place in road construction, but the railway was a more substantial line of communication, and the economic effects of its construction were much greater. This study begins in 1874, when the pace of expansion accelerated distinctly, with official British. intervention in the internal affairs of the Malay states and the formulation of specific transport construction programs. The discussion ends with the Japanese invasion in 1941, by which time the major transportation lines had been laid out and the hegemony of the railroad was being challenged by road transportation.