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Within the labor-intensive construction industry characterized by distinctly structural shortages in the labor force worldwide, efficient and effective migration of construction workers across regions is critical for the smooth operation of construction activities. This study aims to investigate how the interregional migration patterns of construction workers are impacted by the disparities in both employment opportunities and environment amenities between the origin and destination provinces.

Drawing on the push and pull theory and the archival data on 13,728 migrant construction workers in China, descriptive analyses are first performed to characterize the interregional migration patterns of the investigated construction workers. Combining regional data in the National Bureau of Statistics of China, this study uses hierarchical regression modeling techniques to empirically test the relative importance of the employment-related and environment-related factors in driving the interregional migration of construction workers after controlling for the effects of related economic and geographic factors.

The results provide evidence that the interregional migration of construction workers is principally driven by the disparities in employment opportunities while disparities in environment amenities (including climate comfort disparity, medical service disparity and educational service disparity) generally play much fewer substantive roles. With regard to the impacts of employment opportunities, the results provide evidence that compared with the disparity in job market size, the disparities in job income and industry development level are more significantly relevant factors, which positively pull and adversely push the interregional migration flows, respectively.

This study contributes to a deepened understanding of how workers specifically balance their employment and amenity needs to make temporary migration decisions in the “laggard” labor-intensive construction industry. This study also adds to the literature on population migration by characterizing the specific characteristics of construction workers and the temporary nature of the workers' migration activities. The findings hold important practical implications for construction organizations and policymakers for effectively managing the mobility of migrant construction workers.

The extant literature on migrant construction workers has primarily focused on the consequences of international migration and the generalization of empirical findings on population migration mechanisms in other domains to the construction industry is substantially limited by the specific characteristics of construction workers and the temporary nature of their migration activities. In addressing this gap, this study represents an exploratory effort to quantitatively characterize the interregional migration patterns of construction workers in the labor-intensive construction industry and examines the roles of employment opportunity and environmental amenity in driving interregional migration.

The economic literature on labor migration has incorporated insights from various disciplines with regard to content and method, although the representation of migrants has not fully moved away from the neoliberal, market-dominated framework. This paper addresses the issue of women migrant workers using the particular example of Sri Lankan migrant women workers to the Middle East. It aims to highlight the need for more diversity in economic research without which conceptual representation, as well as empirical reach, is limited.

After a brief overview of the representation of migrants in economic literature, I develop the concept of vulnerability. I refer to qualitative and quantitative analyses on Sri Lankan migrant women workers to the Middle East from a variety of disciplines in order to differentiate the “vulnerable,” that is, the workers in need of protection, from the “vulnerabilities.” The latter concept refers to the debilitating effects on workers, produced by market forces, which are often perpetuated by underlying assumptions, as well as policies. A broader, inter-disciplinary perspective, which considers the agency of women, can go a long way toward removing some of the limitations and preconceptions ingrained in most economic representation. This in turn could help to improve the protection of the vulnerable and empower them to better face market forces.

This paper aims to explore the determinants of the livelihoods of return migrant workers in Vietnam. The findings will help authorities updating their regulations on migration, thus grasping the economic benefit from documented but low-skilled return migrant workers.

The sample is collected when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the Vietnamese economy severely. The author considers six issues of income and employment, including total income, stable income, financial pressure experiences, unemployment, stable job and time to find a job. For this purpose, through a pre-structured questionnaire, the primary data is collected from 258 Vietnamese return migrant workers in various foreign countries. Notably, all respondents in the sample are documented but low-skilled return migrant workers. The author uses various empirical regression analyses to conclude that personal traits, family characteristics and their characteristics before and after migration play a critical role in determining the livelihood of migrants returning to Vietnam.

The author finds that personal traits, family characteristics and their characteristics before and after migration play a critical role in determining the livelihood of migrants returning to Vietnam.

The findings are critical for Vietnamese authorities in finalizing and updating their regulations on migration, thus grasping the economic benefit from documented but low-skilled return migrant workers.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to exploit the drivers of the livelihoods of return migrants in Vietnam, a rich, two-wave panel survey of respondents in Vietnam aimed at characterizing the history of migration of low-skilled and documented migrants back to Vietnam and to use these histories to gain insight into Vietnamese return migrants’ economic status, access to financial, welfare and health insurance benefits and employment prospects.

This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the effects of active political engagement in port-of-entry jobs and employment pathways for graduate students in a post-communist context which is characterized by clientelism. The data are derived from a structured survey of a small local labour market where political clientelism is pronounced due to the strong network ties. Controlling for both demand and supply factors, the authors identify a profile for those who are more prone to engage politically in exchange for public sector jobs, which are in turn vulnerable to regime changes.

The authors use data from a sample of 191 students that records month-to-month employment states for three consecutive years (2012–2014). The method attempts to replicate an experimental design with repeated measures before and after the June 2013 government elections. The data is analysed using sequence analysis with optimal matching and difference-in-difference methods.

The analysis provides evidence of links between political engagement and selection onto different employment pathways under conditions of political clientelism. The pathways themselves are also shown to be differentially impacted by the 2013 election (positively or negatively). Together, these results are supportive of claims that jobs in Albania, particularly those in the public sector, are linked to the short-term presence of vote-buying. This is shown to be the case even for this sample of educated members of the labour force (i.e. university graduates). The analysis also finds evidence of accumulative disadvantages over time, in relation to subjective perceptions of life satisfaction, migration intentions, employability and success in life, as a result of active political engagement.

The study uses a unique data set and a novel methodological approach, sequence analysis. Occupational history calendars were used to capture quantitative information recording detailed work histories. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this innovative method has not been used before to measure the temporal effects of political engagement on employment pathways.

This study aims to answer if inter-state migrants in India play a more active role than their intra-state counterparts in labor force participation and entrepreneurship.

A recursive bivariate probit model is used with an instrumental variable (IV) of the total of inter-state migrants in a city over their historical numbers to tackle the endogeneity issue of the migration decision of the migrants.

Inter-state migrants did a better job than their intra-state counterparts in labor force participation and female inter-state migrants did a better job than their counterparts in wage employment and being day laborers.

The data are from IPUMS and there is no updated nationwide data regrading migration and employment for recent years.

A randomized controlled trail can be carried out near the borders of two states where there are both significant amounts of inter-state and intra-state migrants.

The government and international organizations shall focus on cultivating the skills of the female migrants as well as encouraging the entrepreneurship of both types of migrants.

The study focus is on the comparison between intra- and inter-state migrants based on nationwide survey data and the usage of recursive bivariate model and an effective Instrumental Variable.

The aim of this study is to define the aspects of place attachment and their effect on migratory behaviour. It also aims to identify the connection between migration decision-making and workforce supply at the source, as well as to track the impact of adequate employment supplies and the improvement on employment generation.

A primary study was conducted among the migrants who returned back during nationwide lockdown with the help of tested structured questionnaire. The variables identified through review of literature and pilot study are tested using a structural equation modelling model.

The result exhibited that all hypothesised relationships had a positive and significant connection. The overall results showed there is a significant and positive connection between place attachment and migratory behaviour, and both have a positive impact on economic activity.

This survey is conducted in the districts of West Bengal, India. There are several documents on the connection to the place attachment and the migratory behaviour. There are, however, no studies focusing on place attachment and its effect on economic activity on West Bengal, India, where migration is a serious problem. This is the first article that discusses three main concepts together such as place attachment, migratory behaviours and its influence on the economic activity of the districts of West Bengal, India.

There is a considerable gap in the literature examining the effect of parental international migration on children’s health in Pakistan. The author aims to examine the impact of parental international labour migration on the health (anthropometric measures) of children left-behind in Pakistan.

The author investigates the impact of parental international labour migration on the health (anthropometric measures) of children left-behind in Pakistan using econometric estimation techniques and the latest wave of the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2017–2018. The main child health measures the author uses include weight-for-age (WAZ) and height-for-age (HAZ) Z-scores for children under five years of age. Since unobservable factors may be vital determinants of the child nutrition outcomes, the author uses two unique instrumental variables to address the potential endogeneity problem.

The author finds that international migration improves the left-behind children’s weight-for-age and height-for-age nutritional outcomes, generating essential policy insights.

To the best of the auhtor’s knowledge, no previous study has been conducted on parental migration and left-behind children in Pakistan using the latest Demographic and Health Survey.

Labor migration poses a risk to the family as a social institution. Dissolution of marriages among couples caused by infidelity and labor migration is considered to be one of the social costs of migration, where children of migrants are greatly affected. This study examines the response of children when they found out about their parent’s infidelity and the ways of coping employed in dealing with the changed family situation. Nine participants aged 16–25 who are children of overseas Filipino workers (OFW) were interviewed. Thematic analysis was used to draw out recurring themes to answer the research questions. The results showed that there are negative feelings felt upon knowing the infidelity of their parent, either by their parent-left or the parent abroad. The relationship between the child and the parent who committed infidelity has been significantly interrupted. Additionally, friends were considered to be an essential source of support. The study contributed to the understanding that labor migration is one of the factors that contributed to strained relationships between husband and wife, and the children were the most affected.

Skilled migrant (SM) women play a key role in developed countries especially in healthcare and education in easing staffing shortages and migrate expecting to gain qualification-matched employment (QME). The aim of this review is to assess whether SM women gain the anticipated QME, equitably compared to their skilled counterparts and to examine why and how they do so.

I conducted a systematic literature review to derive empirical studies to assess if, why and how SM women achieve QME (1) using SM women-only samples and comparative samples including SM women, and (2) examining whether they gain QME directly on or soon after migration or indirectly over time through undertaking alternative, contingent paths.

Only a minority of SM women achieve the anticipated QME directly soon after migration and less often than their skilled counterparts. Explaining the mechanism for achieving QME, other women, especially due to having young families, indirectly undertake alternative, lower-level contingent paths enabling them to ascend later to QME.

The SM literature gains new knowledge from revealing how SM women can gain positions post-migration comparable to their pre-migration qualifications through undertaking the alternative, contingent paths of steppingstone jobs and academic study, especially as part of agreed familial strategies. This review results in a theoretical mechanism (mediation by a developmental contingency path) to provide an alternative mechanism by which SM women achieve QME.

This paper aims to refine the concept of community/ethnic resources for migrant communities by focusing on the way ethnic migrant entrepreneurs (EMEs) use co-ethnic-based (CEB) resources in their entrepreneurial activities, taking into account their migration contexts. Migrants are usually considered as disadvantaged individuals given their restricted opportunities in the labor market and in the business arena; thus, they rely on ethnic resources for survival in the host country.

Through Bourdieu’s (1986) forms of capital model, the authors compare the experiences of EMEs from three migrant communities in Malaysia (specifically, the Indonesian, Pakistani and South Korean communities) with regard to their ethnic resources. The authors used a qualitative approach in analyzing our data, which includes interview narratives with 41 individuals consisting of EMEs, community leaders, embassy representatives and trade experts.

This study’s findings indicate that migration contexts influence the differences in the way ethnic resources are used by EMEs. The findings are synthesized into a framework of ethnic resources within the context of ethnic migrant entrepreneurship.

Adopting a qualitative approach was useful in studying the subject, but the findings are still limited within the context of the study. As such, future research is encouraged to test the proposed framework and examine the underexplored aspects of migration in influencing the utilization of ethnic resources for entrepreneurial migrant communities.

A practical implication of this paper lies in the illustration of migrants’ usage of alternative routes for resources through co-ethnic networks, which is useful for policymakers and businesses focusing on migration and trade.

This framework contributes to the discourse of ethnic migrant entrepreneurship through further clarifying aspects shaping the utilization of community ethnic resources.