When the Light of the Home is Abroad: Unskilled Female Migration and the Filipino Family

The migration of women engaged in transnational domestic work reveals how the uneven impacts of globalisation have intruded into the micro‐world of families and households. In this age of globalisation and migration, family membership has become multisited or transnational, with members dispersed in space. The migration of workers and the separation this entails has raised challenges to notions and ideals of “being family”. Unlike other workers on the move, the migration of domestic workers has some distinctive characteristics. It can be framed in terms of women moving between families and households; workers whose departure from their family of origin and insertion into their family of employment reconstitute the structure and content of family relationships in both material and imagined ways. Drawing on in‐depth interviews conducted in the Philippines and Singapore, we explore how migrant women and their family members define and negotiate family ideals, gender identities and family relationships, given the family's transnational configuration. Our findings provide some support to the notion that individual members in transnational families resort to “relativising” in fashioning responses to their situation.     

营造新的经济增长点 广开就业门路

随着经济体制改革的不断深入,企业进行产业结构和经济结构调整的步伐明显加快,下岗职工逐年增加。如何安置下岗职工再就业已是社会性重大问题。党的“十五”大提出了做好就业再就业工作,最根本的是发展经济、拓宽渠道、创造岗位、增加就业机会。国家经济发展只有保持适度的增长速度,才是宽松地解决就业与再就业的大前提。     

Human capital requirements in Singapore's international financial centre

International financial centres (IFCs) are regarded as important nodes in governing global flows of money and capital. With increased globalization and rapid technological changes, the rivalry among IFCs has further intensified competition for financial labour—as a concentrated pool of highly skilled finance workers in an open and flexible labour market is crucial to sustaining the competitive dynamics of these urban financial hotspots. This study investigates the importance of different skills and tasks in financial work. Based on surveys and interviews conducted among Singapore's IFC workers, the findings show that cognitive, interpersonal communication and managerial-leadership skills and tasks are more important in financial work, whereas programming, mathematics and systems-based skills are perceived to be less important. Additionally, a network visualization of finance occupational skills obtained from Singapore's national skills database reinforces the importance of cognitive and relational skills in that sector. Higher-order cognitive and relational skills are expected to become even more critical as the financial sector undergoes rapid digital transformation, reinforcing the importance of IFCs as agglomerations of skilled finance talent.     

进城务工人员购物活动时空特征解析——以南京市为例

以南京市进城务工人员为研究对象,在宏观把握其社会经济及空间概况的基础上,分析其线下购物的时空特征及典型时空轨迹。结果表明:(1)时间特征上表现为以低频购物为主;购物时段集中在上下班途中及休息日下午;购买低等级商品时对出行时间较为敏感,约为10 min;购买高等级商品时对出行时间不太敏感,多集中在1 h内。(2)空间特征上表现为购买低等级商品时对出行距离较为敏感,约为0.5 km,购物活动空间较为集聚;购买高等级商品对出行距离敏感性较低,购物出行空间较为分散。(3)时空轨迹上表现为单纯购物活动的购物场所及出行空间等级均较低,购物时长较短,购物时段的连续性在工作日要高于休息日;多目的购物活动的购物场所及出行空间等级则较高,购物时长较长,购物时段集聚度较高。     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this article: Boundary Control and Legal Priniciples . Curtis M. Brown , Walter G. Robillard and Donald A. Wilson . Lost Initiatives: Canada's Forest Industries, Forest Policy, and Forest Conservation . R. Peter Gillis and Thomas R. Roach . The Navajo Atlas: Resources, People, and History of the Dine Bikeyah . James M. Goodman . The City and the Sign . M. Gottdiener AND Alexandros Ph . Lagopoulos , EDS. The Comfortable House: North American Suburban Architecture 1890–1930 . Alan Gowans . Arabic-Islamic Cities. Building and Planning Principles . Besim Salim Hakim . Contemporary Climatology . Ann Henderson -Sellers and Peter J. Robinson . A Trace of Desert Waters . Samuel G. Houghton . Geography, Resources and Environment. Vol. 1: Selected Writings of Gilbert F. White. Vol. 2: Themes from the Work of Gilbert F. White . Robert W. Kates AND Ian Burton , ED. Spatial Dimensions of Unemployment and Underemployment (A Case Study of Rural Punjab) . Gopal Krishan . Maps of the Holy Land: Cartobibliography of Printed Maps, 1475–1900 . Compiled by Eran Laor , assisted by Shoshana Klein . The Geography of Third World Cities . Stella Lowder . A Perspective on U.S. Farm Problems and Agricultural Policy . Lance Mc Kinzie , Timothy G. Baker AND Wallace E. Tyner . Soil Erosion and Its Control. R.P.C . Morgan , ED Geopolitics . Patrick O'Sullivan . Landscape, Meanings and Values . Edmund C. Penning -Rowsell AND David Lowenthal , EDS.     

International knowledge mobility and urban development in rapidly globalizing areas: building global hubs for talent in Dubai and Abu Dhabi

This paper examines the processes through which the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) cities of Abu Dhabi and Dubai attract and integrate knowledge workers into their labor markets. It focuses on how the UAE has acquired the human capital to create post-oil economies, deploying its oil windfalls into massive urban development strategies in order to create global hubs for talent. More significantly, it analyzes how the UAE’s strategies and frameworks for attracting global knowledge flows ultimately determine the degree to which expatriate knowledge embeds locally. Presentation of results from a large-scale human capital survey of firms in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, as well as key-informant interviews with senior human resource administrators at these firms, demonstrate these processes.     

Global city and precarious work of migrants in China: a survey of seven cities

Drawing on data from a sample of 2,518 migrant workers from seven cities in China, this paper examines how precarious work of migrants varies across different types of cities. The research finds that compared with their counterparts in the non-global cities, migrant workers in Shanghai experience lower levels of precarity in their jobs. Additionally, with regards to different aspects of precariousness of work, Shanghai performs particularly better on providing labor contracts and social insurances. Contrary to the standard “Global City” hypothesis, it seems that in a developing country such as China, globalization is more likely to improve the institutionalization and standardization of industrial relationships rather than decay them.     

深圳农民工集聚空间的演变特征及影响机制

以2000年、2010年人口普查数据和2008年珠江三角洲外来农民工问卷调查为基础数据,以街道为单元,运用数理统计分析和GIS空间技术揭示深圳农民工集聚空间演变特征及其影响机制。研究发现：① 深圳农民工以青年为主体,具有受教育水平高、职业转型模式多样、留城意愿较低和社会空间分异度较高等特征。② 农民工规模呈现西北部最高、中部其次、沿海最低的地带性分布规律,农民工高密度地区主要分布在工业集中区和城市中心区;热点区（高聚集区）集中在西部和北部的宝安区和龙华新区,冷点区（低聚集区）则分布在南部的中心城区,与传统制造业布局相一致。③ 农民工空间演化格局相对稳定,全市农民工分布重心逐步向西北偏移;全市农民工集中度略有上升,热点区基本稳定,冷点区有所扩大;农民工人口密度高值由“1个高中心+1个外围中心”逐步演变为“1个高中心+2个外围中心”;农民工空间变化差异较大,增长演变类型呈多样化。④ 深圳农民工分布的时空演变特征与常住人口存在较为明显的差异。⑤ 农民工集聚空间的分布演变受住房因素、就业机会、交通条件、社会网络、城市规划共同影响。     

杭州市农民工生计脆弱性特征与对策

农民工是我国大城市中的弱势群体之一,极易受到失业、生产事故、经济波动等社会风险的冲击,其生计日益成为影响我国经济社会转型期国计民生的重要问题之一。本文从脆弱性视角出发,建立了符合城市农民工生计特征的生计资本评估指标体系,并结合实地调查资料对杭州市农民工生计脆弱性特征及成因进行了分析。研究认为,杭州农民工生计资本具有典型的脆弱性特征,突出表现在教育培训缺失、人力资本不足,租房生活为主、物质资本薄弱,收入水平低下、金融资本虚化,边缘感较强、社会资本匮乏。最后,探讨了可持续生计分析框架在大城市农民工生计问题研究中的适用性,并结合实证研究结果提出了增强大城市农民工生计资本降低其生计脆弱性的调控对策,以期为杭州市及我国其他大城市农民工生计可持续性研究提供新的分析思路和实践参考。