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At global fora which discuss the regulation of international migration the Philippine government is typically hailed a “good practice example” for its institutional as well as legal framework and proactive interest in the welfare of its citizens. The Philippine history of migration policy making is indeed shaped by a shift from “exporting workers” to an increasingly comprehensive rights-sensitive approach that addresses most aspects of migration: the regulation of recruitment agencies, pre-migration training, insurance systems, overseas voting rights, consular services, social rights of the left behind, and re-integration of returned migrants. This state of affairs, however, has not always been like that and is largely the result of activism by the vibrant migrant rights movement in the Philippines which reaches across the world. The case of the Philippine also shows mixed approaches to government-social movement relations, characterized by both pressure politics and critical engagement.

Considerable gaps and loopholes remain in this web of rights-based policy aspects. Structural weaknesses are major problems that need to be addressed if labor migration is to evolve into a truly choice-driven economic decision. Still, comparatively and historically speaking, the Philippines have come a long way. The combined effects of leadership from below and leadership from above had led to some concrete results – even if far from perfect – in the betterment of many migrants’ lives.

This study takes the Japanese concept of kaizen, that is, continuous quality improvement, as a means of looking behind the Toyota Production System (TPS), to examine in some detail the work of kaizen and technology transfer instructors in overseas transplants. Special attention is paid to their role as learning facilitators. The research provides insights into how these workers prepare for their overseas transplant assignments, the methods they use to instruct other workers and the kinds of problems they experience in relating to and communicating with foreign employees of Toyota. The findings show the commitment the technology transfer instructors have to doing their work well and living by example the corporate culture and values of Toyota. These workers recognize the special challenge of communicating effectively as learning facilitators across different national cultures and languages and make practical suggestions for improvements in this regard.

The purpose of this paper is to review the international migration-and-development story of the Philippines, amongst the leading migrant-origin countries.

Migration and socio-economic development data are used to depict the migration-and-development conditions of the Philippines.

The Philippines has mastered the management of overseas migration based on its bureaucracy and policies for the migrant sector. Migration also rose for decades given structural economic constraints. However, the past 10 years of macro-economic growth may have seen migration and remittances helping lift the Philippines' medium-to-long term acceleration. The new Philippine future beside the overseas exodus hinges on two trends: accelerating the economic empowerment of overseas Filipinos and their families to make them better equipped to handle the social costs of migration; and strategizing how to capture a “diasporic dividend” by pushing for more investments from overseas migrants' savings.

This paper may not cover the entirety of the Philippines' migration-and-development phenomenon.

Improving the financial capabilities of overseas Filipinos and their families will lead to their economic empowerment and to hopefully a more resilient handling of the (negative) social consequences of migration.

If overseas Filipinos and their families handle their economic resources better, they may be able to conquer the social costs of migration.

This paper employed a population-and-development (PopDev) framework to analyse the migration-and-development conditions of the Philippines.

Globalisation drives many people to seek overseas employment. However, research on the relation between educational attainment and occupations/incomes mostly focuses on domestic workers while excluding overseas migrant workers. Therefore, the present study includes overseas migrant labourers and aims to examine the relation between educational attainment and occupations/incomes and gender disparity within this relation in Nepal.

This study conducted interview surveys with teachers and home-visit surveys with the subjects and their families based on the school records to collect information such as educational attainment, current occupation, monthly income, etc. The study compared occupations and incomes by educational attainment and gender and analysed the trend. Gender disparity in average monthly incomes was also analysed.

The results of this study registered almost no difference in the proportions of mental labour and high incomes for both males and females at the primary to secondary education echelons. Surprisingly, the average monthly incomes of females were around 60% or less than the remunerations offered to male workers with equivalent educational qualifications. This disparity does not narrow even at the higher educational classifications. Moreover, the disparity is widening even more by overseas migrant labour.

Since this study gathered extensive data on individual youth and did not rely on secondary data, it was possible to perform an in-depth analysis and accurately portray the real situation faced by Nepalese youth. Moreover, by including overseas migrant labourers, the study could examine the relation between educational attainment and occupations/incomes not only in the domestic market but also in the global market.

This study analyses the different factors contributing to the retention and turnover of local- and overseas-born workers in the elderly care sector as an integral part of ensuring a stable workforce and quality care for the growing elderly population.

Using a respondent-driven sampling method, a sample of individuals who worked or are working in residential aged care facilities in Dunedin, New Zealand were surveyed.

The factors associated with intention to stay or leave are not necessarily the same factors influencing workers to leave.

Policies need to consider how to make workers want to stay and address the issues that make workers leave the aged care sector.

Results of this study can be used to develop more relevant labour and migration policies that reflect a more grounded insight into the experiences of those who are directly and personally affected by these policies.

There are limited international or national empirical studies on the economics of care worker migration and the labour market. This study can provide practical policy advice to help improve recruitment and retention strategies for care workers in countries dependent on global labour markets for health workers. In New Zealand, changes in policies concerning remuneration and immigration highlight the importance of ensuring that care worker needs are met both financially and in terms of institutional support.

This paper is mainly focused on labor migration from Southeast Asia to Taiwan, showing a route of south–south mobility and discussing the causes of migrant workers in Taiwan, the issues faced by migrant workers as well as public response to migrant workers.

Besides a literate review on the topic of migrant worker researches in Taiwan, the data for this research was also based on qualitative interviews and observations conducted both in the fieldwork in Taiwan and in Indonesia between June and August during the summer of 2018.

The transnational mobility let many migrants from Southeast Asian countries to Taiwan end up losing their cultural capital and “make money” instead. For these migrants, they have experienced a downward social mobility of class through transnational mobility.

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability. More migrant laborers from various origin countries were encouraged to include for further research.

Labor migration cases from Southeast Asia to Taiwan could very well serve as good examples in the carrying out of a reflection on the limit of focusing on social science only inside nation-states in order to push a forward thinking on the transnationalization of social inequality.

This paper calls attention to the close linkage between transnational mobility and social inequality. It showed how the transnationalization of social inequality could get new faces through the new waves of labor migration.

Remittances sent by immigrants have long been viewed as a means to combat poverty, to improve consumption, and to raise standard of living. The present study examines the impact of remittances on the economic well-being of Indian households. The analysis is conducted on a randomly selected representative sample of households in Rajasthan. Three types of households are examined: 575 households having current labor migrants, 162 never having migrants, and 232 not having migrants at present but sent migrants in the past. Analysis of the data reveals meaningful differences between the three types of households. Specifically, those having labor migrants are characterized by the highest household income and standard of living. Further analyses suggest that although remittances are likely to improve economic well-being and to secure a higher standard of living they do not have long lasting effect on the economic well-being of the families when migration ends.

This paper explores the feelings of loneliness, insecurity and vulnerability among Indonesian mothers who lived away from their children while they were working overseas – outside of Indonesia – as domestic workers. I accomplish this exploration by conducting open-ended, in-depth interviews in the tradition of feminist methodology with 38 respondents, including the mothers and daughters in relation to long-distance mothering, were from West and Central Java. In my research, I uncovered three distinct themes that the previous literature had not explored, these are: (a) leaving her own children behind; (b) who takes care of her children; and (c) the work of taking care of another woman’s children. I have found in my study that narratives were strongly informed by my respondents’ educational backgrounds, occupations, marital status, economic situations, and the overall well-being of their children (especially daughters) at the time of the interviews.

This study aims to decrypt the efforts made by Chinese people's courts nationwide to protect the rights of Chinese posted workers in the Belt & Road (B&R) countries by investigating labour litigation cases with an extraterritorial application of Chinese labour law (under the “doctrine of overriding mandatory labour rules”).

This study collected all labour litigation from 2014 to 2018 brought forward by Chinese posted workers in Chinese courts against Chinese enterprises regarding the performance of employment contracts in the B&R countries where Chinese labour laws were mandatorily applied under the doctrine of overriding mandatory labour rules. The study adopted a qualitive research approach to analyse the compiled cases to explore their characteristics and effects.

This study found that the volume of labour disputes in the B&R countries had a somewhat positive correlation to the amount of investment from China. However, this correlation was rather superficial when compared with the correlation to the type of industrial sector (e.g. the construction sector) and to the claim category (e.g. remuneration claims). Moreover, labour disputes in both the B&R countries and China shared a great deal of similarity with regard to their concentration in certain sectors and in certain types of claims. Therefore, mandatorily applying Chinese labour law could be convenient for Chinese workers returning from abroad who seek remedies and could allow Chinese judges to issue affirmative decisions regardless of the territory in which the worker was posted.

The cases collected by this study were limited to those filed in China by Chinese workers who were hired by Chinese enterprises and sent to work in the B&R countries and did not include those filed in the B&R countries by Chinese posted workers. Future research should therefore attempt to gather a broader range of labour disputes to further clarify the issues and need for labour protection for Chinese posted workers in the B&R countries.

This study argues that the doctrine of overriding mandatory labour rules is not entirely unproblematic because it might arbitrarily rule out the standards set by foreign labour legislation that could be more favourable to workers or offer them greater protection. Therefore, giving judges a certain degree of discretion is imperative to allow them to apply foreign labour standards when they have been proven to benefit workers.

Apart from a handful of reports on individual cases, there have been very few empirical studies regarding the general picture of labour protection for Chinese posted workers in the B&R countries. This study has adopted a novel approach to collect information on labour disputes in the B&R countries and to facilitate a qualitative analysis to test the practical implications of the doctrine of overriding mandatory labour rules.

This essay examines a common assertion among middle-class shoppers in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, that place of manufacture, rather than brand markers, largely determines the quality of goods. For shoppers in Ho Chi Minh City, unity of place, people, raw materials, and trade secrets at the source – a corporation’s home country – is essential to the production of high quality goods. This stands in contrast to the brand logic through which corporations outsource their production presumably without compromising product quality. By privileging production sites over brands, shoppers in Ho Chi Minh City interpret the recent increase of famous foreign brand name goods in Vietnam as an increase of domestic, rather than foreign goods.