Ties that bind: State policy and migrant female domestic helpers in Singapore

Global economic restructuring has not only intensified the shift in reproductive work from the household to the market, but it has been predicated on the international mobility of labour to countries where locals are no longer willing to work in low-paying menial jobs. This paper focuses on Singapore as a country which has drawn upon female migrant workers from neighbouring developing countries to work as domestic helpers in Singapore such that the gainful entry of its own women into the formal economy has been facilitated. Drawing upon a range of secondary sources as well as field data, the paper demonstrates how state policies on labour migration in Singapore have played a crucial role in influencing the uneven employer-employee relationships that migrant female domestic helpers in Singapore households find themselves in. More generally, it argues that the availability of foreign domestic helpers in Singapore and the state discourse on the issue has contributed to perpetuating the patriarchal ideology of housework as women's work and of housework as non-work.     

On waiting,work-time and imagined futures: Theorising temporal precariousness among Chinese chefs in Sweden’s restaurant industry

This paper explores the precarious working conditions in the Chinese restaurant industry in Sweden – a country considered to have one of Europe’s most liberal labour immigration policies. Drawing upon a theoretical framework inspired by scholarship on precarious work and time geography, the paper argues that precarious work performed by migrant labour can be usefully understood through three interrelated temporal processes that, when they work together, produce and maintain precarious work-life situations. They are: (1) work-time arrangements: that is, actual working hours per day and over the annual cycle, the pace and intensity of work and the flexibility demanded of migrant workers in terms of when work is carried out, (2) the spatio-temporal ‘waiting zones’ indirectly produced by immigration policies that delay full access to labour markets and in which precarious work-time arrangements consequently arise, and (3) migrant workers’ imagined futures, which motivate them to accept precarious work-time arrangements during a transitory period. The paper thus also illuminates that the Chinese chefs in Sweden’s restaurant industry are not just passive victims of exploitative work-time arrangements. Rather, waiting – for a return to China or settlement in Sweden – may be part of migrants’ strategies to achieve certain life course trajectories.     

Economic refugees in post-apartheid South Africa – Assets or liabilities? Implications for progressive migration policies

While South Africa's political transformation has been lauded internationally, one of the greatest challenges facing the post-apartheid democratic government is undocumented immigration. There has been a xenophobic tendency to stigmatise immigrants, particularly those from other African countries as criminals, as people who undermine economic development and take jobs from locals. The aim of this paper is to critically review changing policies towards undocumented migration in post-apartheid South Africa. More specifically, the paper will present a historical context to migration; question whether there are millions of illegal immigrants in South Africa; identify reasons for the increasing influx of migrants into the country; analyse the rise of xenophobia in the Republic; discuss problems associated with migrants; and assess changing immigration policies. The main reason for leaving their home countries was a lack of employment opportunities. Therefore the migrants could be regarded as economic refugees. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Caribbean skilled international migration and the transnational household

The increased proportion of skilled workers in the total number of Caribbean international migrants since the mid-1960s has been the cause of much concern by governments of Caribbean countries. It has been interpreted as a loss in human resources with detrimental implications for development. This paper briefly outlines the occupational profile of Caribbean migrants and raises questions concerning the extent to which migrant outflow represents absolute loss. The argument is advanced that the traditional conceptualization of migration as displacement is largely responsible for the assumptions made. It oversimplifies the process to present a set of sources and destinations, ignoring the interactions accompanied by significant counterflows of people, ideas, influence, capital and goods. It is argued that circulation is not confined to commuter-type mobility but in the Caribbean it is also a feature of long-stay migration and the establishment of what are effectively transnational households. Though the characteristics and spatial behaviour of the household vary with the specific migration type, the transnational household provides a more appropriate model for analysing Caribbean migration and its implications than does the model based on migration as displacement.     

Skilled migration and cumulative disadvantage: the case of highly qualified Asian Indian immigrant women in the US

The research on skilled international migration focuses primarily on the experiences of male migrants. Little work has been done on female migrants, especially those who migrated as dependents of highly skilled males. This paper presents some data on Asian Indian women in the US, and argues that these women suffer from cumulative disadvantage. The paper emphasizes that it is necessary to adopt a complex model involving the interaction of gendered/racialised immigration laws, workplace and household experiences in order to understand the experiences of these women.     

From settlers to skilled transients: The changing structure of British international migration

This paper examines trends in British emigration using the results of the International Passenger Survey. Settlement emigration has declined in importance while in the early 1980s temporary skilled labour transfers have become dominant. Two parallel mechanisms are proposed to explain the regional patterns of skilled emigration, with particular emphasis being given to the role of international recruitment agencies in controlling which skills are sought in certain regional labour markets.     

Recent immigration to Italy: Character,causes and consequences

During the 1970s Italy changed from being a country of mass emigration to one of mass immigration, taking over from Germany the role of Europe's main recipient of immigrants from less developed countries. By 1991 the officially registered foreign population in Italy stood at 860,000; however, clandestine migrants push the real figure above 1 million. Italy was generally unprepared for this immigration and policy has been slow to evolve. Analysis of residence permit data show that the immigrants come increasingly from Third World, especially African, countries, and that there is a relative concentration in the north of Italy. One third of the immigrants are Moslem. Employment data are scarce but indicate that around two–thirds are involved in low-grade service sector activities (street-trading, domestic service, hotel work etc.). There is a high degree of occupational specialisation amongst certain national groups (Senegalese street-hawkers, Tunisian fishermen, Filipino domestics etc.). The immaturity of the immigration is also revealed by marked gender and age assymetry. Five main causes are suggested as being behind the immigration: ease of entry; Italy's increasing prosperity; segmentation of the Italian labour market, opening up specific niches for immigrant employment; dominance of push factors from the countries of origin; and the demographic collapse in Italy. Within Italy, the reaction to immigration has not been very favourable. Opinion polls indicate that Italians have mainly negative and stereotyped views of immigrants and there is disturbing evidence of growing racism. Further inflows of immigrants are likely, whatever policies Italy attempts to put in place.     

Migration, remittances and regional development in Southern Morocco

Although Morocco has evolved into one of the world’s leading emigration countries, the systematic study of the developmental impact of migration in migrant-sending regions in Morocco and the Maghreb has been relatively neglected after a temporary surge of pessimistic studies in the 1970s. Empirical work from this region has therefore been largely absent from the lively theoretical debate on migration and development. This study attempts to re-establish this link through qualitative research and a survey among 507 non-migrant, internal and international migrant households in the Moroccan Todgha oasis. The study shows that international migration and remittances have significantly contributed to economic development, improved standards of living and enabled the partial emancipation of subaltern ethnic groups. International migrant households invest more than others in housing, agriculture and other enterprises. Risk spreading and income stabilisation rather than increasing incomes seem to be the prime rationale behind internal migration, although internal migration tends to facilitate the education and international migration of younger household members. Remittance expenditure and investments have stimulated the diversifying and urbanising regional economy and have triggered a counter-flow of “reverse” internal migration. However, several structural constraints prevent the high development potential of migration from being fully realised.     

Regional policies and the national interest

The shifting relationships between central and local government policies with regard to land use and economic development in Britain are reviewed, and recent tendencies in the management of spatial economic change summarised. Public interest and activity in this sphere have waned markedly in recent years as economic circumstances have deteriorated, traditional policies disappointed and economic priorities changed. The continuing advantages of regional intervention are considered and exemplified at several spatial scales. The policy constraints imposed by the weakness of the national economy are acknowledged. New attitudes and policies are advocated which, more than in the past, would recognise and exploit the considerable economic strengths of some parts of the country, and which suggest the desirability of a different spatial development path to that espoused by governments in recent decades.     

Family strategies in a neoliberal world: Korean immigrants in Winnipeg

South Korean immigration to Canada has increased since the East Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s. Korean immigrants in Winnipeg chose the city for many reasons: the introduction of the Provincial Nominee Program, structural changes in the home country, and individual family strategies to provide better educational opportunities for their children. This article examines how changes in the current wave of globalization, at both global and local scale, have affected the migration of Koreans to Winnipeg, Canada and how individual households chose their immigration destination. This study contributes to understanding of the less popular immigrant destinations of Canada using a multiscalar analysis that includes household level. In addition to economic purposes and children’s education, changes of life style can be an important reason for immigrant location choice. Overall, the neoliberal economy in South Korea has pushed many Koreans to move to other countries, and the globalization of the Canadian economy has pulled nomadic middle-class members from other countries.     

Beyond Chinatown,beyond Enclave: Reconceptualizing Contemporary Chinese Settlements in the United States

Profound changes in international geopolitics and national policies, as well as global economic restructuring, and technological and communicational development have occurred since Chinatown first emerged. With the rapid pace of globalizing economy, increasing flows of population, commodities, information, and financial resources across the Pacific Rim – particularly in the last two decades – it is imperative that we reexamine the international migration patterns of Chinese population and reconceptualize the resulting Chinese settlement forms in the globalization era. This article attempts to serve such purposes by briefly reviewing the debate centered around historical and contemporary Chinatowns; discussing the impacts of societal and structural factors on Chinese immigration and settlement; presenting a spectrum of contemporary Chinese settlement forms in the United States, and highlighting some key characteristics. The article ends with brief discussion and conclusion sections that summarize some issues in contemporary Chinese community studies.     

Gendering transnational communities: a comparison of Singaporean and British migrants in China

Studies of transnational communities and transnational labour migration have focused almost exclusively on the movement of low-skilled and unskilled workers across international boundaries. While these groups may be numerically dominant, it must be recognised that there are increasing numbers of managers and professionals engaged in work-related migration in association with the intensification of economic globalisation processes. Work which has been conducted on highly skilled migrants has largely been limited to examinations of intra-firm mobility and the workspace. This approach fails to consider the ways in which the migrants' experiences are embedded in the social, economic and political practices of the host country, but also in a specific household context. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the gendered dimensions of the life of these migrants and their accompanying family members has been somewhat under-researched.Flows of expatriates can lead to the constitution of both ‘communities of transnationals', as particular cities become foci of the activities of the ‘transnational capitalist class', as well as ‘transnational communities' which involve regular and sustained contact between individuals across national boundaries. In this paper we examine these social formations using two groups of migrants––British and Singaporean migrants to China (both mainland China and the Hong Kong SAR). We focus on the gender characteristics of these groupings, but also the gender division of labour in the creation and maintenance of these ‘communities'. The paper is based on qualitative research carried out in China, Singapore and the UK 1997–2001.     

Job-related mobility and plant performance in Sweden

This paper uses a Swedish micro-dataset containing 2,696,909 hires during the period 2002–2006 to assess the impact of job-related mobility on plant-level performance. The analysis classifies new recruits according to their work experience and level of formal qualification, as well as by the region of origin and of destination. New hires are divided into graduates and experienced workers and between high- and low-educated. The results point towards the importance of acknowledging both the experience and the skills of new recruits. The greatest benefits are related to hiring new workers from outside the region where the plant is located. The analysis also stresses the importance of geography, with plants in metropolitan regions gaining the most from labour mobility, while the benefits of mobility for plants in smaller, more peripheral regions are more diverse and dependent on both the type and origin of new workers.     

Immigrants and world cities: from the hyper-diverse to the bypassed

A relationship between globalization, cities and immigration is increasingly apparent. Whether one is trying to understand Dubai, Toronto, or London, immigrants are culturally, economically, and spatially changing cities in significant ways. This study compares the roster of world cities with that of major urban immigrant destinations. The number of major urban immigrant destinations is growing due to the acceleration of immigration driven by income differentials, social networks and various state and local policies to recruit skilled and unskilled labor and replenish population. This study will present urban-level data on the foreign-born for 145 metropolitan areas of over 1 million people. It will focus on the world’s 19 metropolitan areas with over 1 million foreign-born residents. Analysis of the data suggests that there is a range of destination types. Although not all world cities are immigrant gateways, many are.     

Skilled migration in global cities from `Other' perspectives: British Arabs, identity politics, and local embededdness

Migration scholars increasingly have turned their attention to skilled migration, focusing, in particular, on the transfer of professionals within and between transnational corporations. Recent efforts have been made to bring a `cultural' analysis to this phenomenon, including greater scrutiny of the corporate cultures and social networks in which skilled migrants are embedded. This research has emphasised the importance of locality even among these most footloose and transnational of migrants. But despite these complex views of skilled migration, analyses have generated a somewhat limited conception of `skilled migrants' as managerial elites disengaged from local life. This paper examines skilled migration from a different perspective. First, using the case of Arab immigrants in London, this paper highlights the complicated nature of migration trajectories and reveals the diversity of patterns and experiences within the category of skilled migrant. Second, focusing on responses from female study participants, this paper examines the ways in which skilled migrants, rather than disengaging themselves from the host society context, may participate in the local politics of multiculturalism and integration.     

Gender, immigration policies and accreditation: valuing the skills of professional women migrants

Human capital is the most important form of wealth for a modern nation and countries with the most intellectual resources are achieving the highest rates of economic growth. In the drive for human capital, many industrialised countries are giving priority to policies aimed at attracting highly skilled immigrants. The number of skilled immigrants who settle permanently in these countries is not rising but there is a significant level of temporary movement of highly skilled labour from developing countries, particularly in information technology (IT), medicine, nursing and teaching. Women now account for an increased proportion of highly skilled migrants but there are still few analyses of their economic participation. Immigration selection and occupational entry policies are crucial for an understanding of the gendered experiences of migration for skilled migrants. This article draws together material from empirical work and reports/other literature on the situation facing professional women compared to men, both permanent and temporary, in the selection processes for migration and the post-arrival processes of accreditation and recognition.     

Analyzing the individual and social rights condition of climate refugees from the international environmental law perspective

In evaluating international treaties, in particular, the United Nations Framework on Climate Change Convention, this paper shows that necessary preparations have not been made to protect the rights of individuals who are refugees or have been forced to migrate from their homeland. Immigrants are deprived of the most essential human rights, such as language, culture, and having a right to a healthy living environment. The current legal administration has not made the necessary contingencies for responding to the environmental consequences of immigration and is extremely inefficient in expanding this phenomenon. This paper seeks to address the question of to what extent existing forms of legal and operational protection can apply in climate change-related displacement in general and cross-border displacement in particular. In this work some strategies have been proposed for dealing with these existing gaps. It is expected that analyzing these gaps and determining the international community??s duties and commitments (governments and international organizations) can result in efficient management of this crisis and prevent the outbreak of chaos across the globe.     

A watershed on the Rhine: Changing approaches to international environmental cooperation

Since the 1950s, the governments of the riparian countries of the Rhine have attempted to protect the ecosystems of the river basin through international cooperation. Before 1987, their relations were unproductive and antagonistic. International programs for the protection of Rhine were far less effective than domestic policies. From 1987 onwards, international cooperation on the protection of the Rhine has been exemplary, and has led the way in domestic and international water protection policies. Many existing frameworks of international relations are not able to offer an adequate account of this wholesale change. In this article, an attempt is undertaken with the help of grid-group theory. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Juxtaposing Pakistani diaspora policy with migrants’ transnational citizenship practices

Through a juxtaposition of diaspora policy with migrants’ transnational citizenship practices, this article explores how peoplehood, nationhood and citizenship are articulated, justified and enacted. The article draws on the politico-spatial context of Norwegian-Pakistani transnational social space, analyzing the Pakistani Origin Card (POC), remittances and return mobilities as transnational citizenship practices. The elusiveness of residency becomes apparent, underscoring the salience of territoriality, for both diaspora strategies and transnational citizenship practices, involving the co-constitution of formal membership and everyday citizenship practices. Through this overlaps, frictions and disruptions in conceptions of citizenship and of nationhood are revealed, underscoring their non-static nature. Whilst questions of who is included within the people are more commonly approached from the vantage point of immigration contexts, they share key tenets of struggles over conceptualizations of citizenship, and more plural ideologies of nationhood, in emigration contexts, exposed by a juxtaposition of diaspora policies and migrants’ transnational citizenship practices.     

Migration between core and peripheral regions: a description and tentative explanation of the patterns in 22 countries

In the developed world at least, the century-long migration towards the high density core regions is over. To establish this thesis, internal migration statistics for 22 countries are examined, covering the period 1950–1979. Of these 22 countries, five categories are distinguished: (1) the countries of north-western Europe (Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and West Germany), in which there is moderate net out-migration from the core regions; (2) the countries of North America (Canada and the United States), in which net out-migration from the core regions has become quite substantial; (3) countries on the periphery of western Europe (Finland, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom), and including Japan and New Zealand, in which the modal pattern is one of increases in net migration towards the core regions between the 1950s and 1960s, followed by a sharp decline in the 1970s, though not to the point where a sustained net flow of population away from these regions has been observed; (4) the countries of eastern Europe (Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, and Poland), in which net migration towards the core regions, though quite moderate, has yet to show a systematic decline; and (5) two advanced developing countries in eastern Asia (South Korea and Taiwan), in which net migration towards the core regions is very large and showing no signs of imminent decline. The countries of the first three categories belong to the developed world, in which economies of further agglomeration in the core regions no longer exist, according to the hypothesis put forward in the second half of this paper. The distinguishing feature of the countries in the first two of these three categories is that their less urbanized, peripheral regions offer sites for urban and industrial development which are competitive with those of the core regions. In contrast, the peripheral regions of the countries of the third category do not offer competitive sites for industry and urban development, due to fundamental deficiencies in physical geography. Thus, despite the disappearance of the agglomeration advantages of the core regions, a sustained net flow of population away from these regions has yet to be observed. Finally, the countries of the fourth and fifth categories, according to our hypothesis, are those in which the economies of further agglomeration in the core regions are still present, due to a lower level of economic development. What distinguishes these last two categories of countries is the strong state policies of decentralization in the countries of eastern Europe, which seem to have avoided the very large and growing net flow of population towards the core regions observed for South Korea and Taiwan, where decentralization policies, though extant, are still subservient to national economic growth policies and are consequently much weaker.