The Japanese Journal of Population, Vol.2, No.1 (March 2004)

Not Here for Good?
International Migration Realities and Prospects in Asia

Maruja M.B. Asis

Abstract
International labor migration has been underway in Asia in the last 30 years, contrary to the intent of migration
policies to keep migration temporary. Despite this experience, migration policies in the region continue to be premised on temporary migration and the refusal to consider the integration of migrants. This article examines whether
Asian countries could continue to keep migration temporary and to admit migrant workers but exclude them thesocial and political life of the receiving countries? It has been possible to prevent settlement in Asia, thus far, but ata cost of denying rights to migrants and their families. The “rights-gap” is an issue that will need further attention inbilateral and regional discussions. Transnational communities are expected to raise this issue in public discussion andpolicy.
Key Words: Labor migration, migration policies, migrants’ rights

Introduction

tries are trying very hard to avert. Asian countries do notview themselves as having a tradition of immigration not in the way that the United States, for example, prides
itself as a nation of immigrants, or how Australia andCanada promote multiculturalism. As such, Asian countries are cautious about settlement for various reasons:settlement is economically and socially costly; some countries perceive themselves as homogeneous; some others
are concerned with the ethnic balance of their societies.
Thus, when the need for migrant workers cropped up,
invariably, receiving countries in Asia designed and/or
carried out temporary labor migration programs. That
was about 30 years ago and to this day, temporary labor
migration continues.
Given Asia’s three-decade experience with largescale labor migration, to what extent can Asia maintain amigration of workers and not end up with human beings?
In other words, can countries of destination in Asia truly
keep migration temporary and limit it only to workers?
This is the major question posed in this article. To answer this question, I will begin by reviewing the broad
strokes of labor migration trends in the region in the last
30 years. I pay particular attention to state policies onlabor migration as they provide the basic framework of
how migrants are received and treated in the destination
countries. The second part of the article examines migration realities and prospects and the challenges that theseIn 1984, Stephen Castles (with Heather Booth andTina Wallace) came out with the book, “Here for Good:
Western Europe’s New Minorities,” which detailed how
temporary labor migration turned into settlement migration in Western Europe. Between 1945 and 1973, the guest
worker program brought in some 30 million people into
Western Europe as workers or workers’ dependents(Castles et al., 1984:1). The best-laid plans designed totransfer workers and to repatriate them at the end of theirwork contracts did not work as planned. The oil crisis of1973 interrupted Western Europe’s economic growth,
dampening the demand for workers, thereby putting an
end to the guest worker program. Among others, it is said
that the human rights tradition in Western Europe worked
against the idea of forcibly repatriating migrants to theircountries of origin. For the workers who decided to stay,the states in Western Europe allowed family reunification. Thus, from the mid-1970s, migration to Western
Europe consisted mostly of family members joining migrant workers who had preceded them. The experiencehas been eloquently summed up by the Swiss writer, Max
Frisch, who remarked: “We asked for workers and got
human beings.”
The transformation of Western Europe’s guest
worker program into de facto settlement and a more culturally diverse society is an eventuality that Asian coun18

The Japanese Journal of Population, Vol.2, No.1 (March 2004)
ticipation of the migration industry - i.e., recruitment andplacement agencies that connected workers and employers - started during the labor migration to the Middle
East and has become an inextricable part of migration in
Asia.1The labor importing countries in the Middle East
intended to keep migration temporary. In fact, one of thereasons why they turned to Asian workers was to reduce
their reliance on workers from other Arab countries, whothey fear may stay. They thought that it would be easierto keep Asian workers from settling permanently. In linewith this objective, migrants are hired on a contract basis, usually for two years, and are required to return totheir home countries at the end of their contract. Family
members are not allowed to join the workers, except in
the case of the highly skilled and professionals who meetan income requirement. Thirty years later, the Middle East
countries continue to source various types of workers
from Asia. Not only do migrant workers account for alarge percentage of the Gulf countries’ workforce, butalso, the foreign population is larger than the local population in the Gulf countries (except Saudi Arabia). The
heavy dependence on migrant workers and demographic
imbalance have been a source of unease for the GCC
countries, prompting them to promote the nationalization of their labor force. However, this policy runs against
demographic and social realities. Except for Saudi Arabia,
which has a population of 25 million, the rest of the GCC
countries have a small population base. In addition, thesecountries do not have enough skilled labor; local workers are not keen in engaging in less skilled work; andgender role ideology keeps women out of the labor market. In all likelihood, it will take many, many years before the GCC countries could nationalize their workforce.2

trends imply in terms of how we will respond to the impacts of migration in the region. Asia is a vast and complex region and for the most part, I shall be referring tointernational migration in East, Southeast and South Asia.
Also, I will focus on the migration of the less skilled, themigrants who comprise the majority of workers on themove. This is not to say that the migration of the highly
skilled and professionals is negligible. Since the 1990s,
there has been an increasing demand for professionals
and highly skilled workers in many receiving countries,
leading to a competition among the latter to attract foreign talents to maintain their competitiveness. In Asia,
all receiving countries welcome professional and highly
skilled migrants and allow them privileges, such as family reunification, which are denied less skilled migrants.
If the highly skilled are generally welcomed, the migration of the less skilled is highly regulated and restricted.
This distinction spells a world of difference in the working and living conditions of these two types of migrants,
and raises human rights questions surrounding less skilledmigrants.

An Overview of Labor Migration Trends
in Asia
The Middle East Connection: The Beginnings ofOrganized Migration
The 1970s was a watershed period heralding manychanges, including the beginning of migrations that are
truly global (Massey et al., 1998). Asia did not escapethe “globalization” of international migrations as the following account will show.
If the oil crisis of 1973-74 ended labor migration
to Western Europe, it opened up new regions of destination and origin in other parts of the world, including the
Gulf region and Asia. The infusion of petrodollars allowed the oil-rich countries to initiate massive infrastructure and development projects. Short of labor, the Gulf
countries - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia
and the United Arab Emirates - drew workers from Asia.
Initially, the Gulf countries imported workers from South
Asia (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) and quickly expanded into East Asia (particularly South Korea), andSoutheast Asia (Thailand and the Philippines). Sri Lanka
and Indonesia joined the ranks of source countries ofworkers a little later, and when they did, they carved aniche in the deployment of domestic workers. The par-Intraregional Migration
Although the Middle East continues to be a major
destination of Asian workers, some changes had been
evident since the 1980s. The 1970s migration to theMiddle East was largely male-dominated, dictated by theneeds of infrastructure development which drew on aheavily male work force. By the 1980s, a time which wascoincident with a drop in oil prices, most of the infrastructure projects had been completed and there was a
slowdown in new projects. These developments signaled
a change in the demand for workers - workers who will
staff hospitals, offices and commercial establishments.

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The Japanese Journal of Population, Vol.2, No.1 (March 2004)
fearing probable social consequences. For example, there
are concerns that foreign domestic workers will pass on
the wrong values to their young wards, or their presence
could introduce tensions in mother-child or husband-wife
relationships.
Intraregional migration in Asia has highlighted
some gender dimensions. For one, the patterns of labor
migration underscore that it is not addressing labor shortages per se but is responding to the demands of a genderedlabor market: male labor migration is responding to thelabor needs in the formal/productive sectors while femalemigration is meeting the labor shortage in the informal/
reproductive sector. The latter points to an oft-forgotten
part of development processes - that families and households are also affected and act upon other changes taking
place in the larger society. In female labor migration, families and households in the destination and origin arelinked, although they are responding to different needs.

Affluence also led to a demand for foreign domestic workers, a change which contributed to the participation of
women in Middle East destinations.3 These new conditions and demands resulted in the participation of womenin labor migration who filled the need for domestic workers, as well as medical workers (particularly nurses), sales
workers, maintenance personnel and hotel staff. The participation of women in labor migration became more visible when Asian destinations opened up.
Starting in the 1980s, the high performing economies in East and Southeast Asia appeared as new labormarkets. In the beginning of the 1980s, there were justabout a million migrant workers in East and Southeast
Asia (including long-term Korean residents in Japan andIndonesians in Malaysia); their number grew to more than
three million in 1990; and more recently, conservative
estimates of legal and unauthorized migrants in East andSoutheast Asia would be in the vicinity of six million(Battistella, 2002:406). Most of this movement is within
the region or intraregional. most of the migrant workers
in Malaysia are from Indonesia; East Malaysia gets mostof its workers from the Philippines; most of the migrant
workers in Thailand are from Burma and the rest arefrom Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam; Taiwan recruits
workers from the ASEAN; and in Korea, the majority of
migrant workers are Korean Chinese. Intraregional migration, thus, became notable since the 1980s and it became another prominent characteristic of Asian migration.
In contrast to the demand for male workers in theinitial phase of labor migration to the Middle East, receiving countries in Asia posed a greater demand for
women migrants. From a share of just about 15 percent
of all Asian workers overseas in the 1970s, female migrants accounted for 27 percent in the 1980s (Abella,
1995:241), which further increased in the 1990s. Mostof the women migrants come from the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka - in these countries, women comprise 60 to 80 percent of legal migrant workers deployed
every year. On the one hand, the participation of womenin labor migration suggests that labor migration is not amale domain, but on the other hand, the concentration of
women migrants in unprotected sectors - domestic workand entertainment - has raised dilemmas and concerns. 4
For countries of origin, the consideration of protection
issues somehow becomes secondary when weighedagainst potential economic benefits (e.g., remittances);for countries of destination, there is ambivalence borneout of the need to recruit migrants, but at the same time

In the destination countries, families experience a shortage of caregivers, which they meet by hiring a foreign
domestic worker; in the origin countries, families faceemigration pressures, which they solve by sending a female member (in response to demand). In the process,women occupy the center of the transfer of reproductive
or care-giving work: women in the more developed countries pass on these tasks to women migrants, who in turn,
pass them on to other women in their home countries (e.g.,
Parreñas, 2001). The consequences of female migration- protection issues, impacts on the families left behind,impacts on the families in the destination, impacts ongender roles - raise manifold questions, which are lesssalient or are regarded with much more ambivalence thanmale migration.
Migration Systems
Even if Asia has become a region in motion, not
all of it is equally affected by migration. Some countries
have stood out as major sources and destinations. Basically, the migration flows reflect the movement of laborfrom the low income and more populous countries to thehigh income and less populous countries. Such patterns
give some support to the neoclassical view about the determinants of migration, but advances in theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence suggest that other factors are at work (e.g., Massey, et al., 1998; ESCAP, 2002).
The different sub-regions - East, Southeast and South
Asia - also bear some particularities which are worth
noting.

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The Japanese Journal of Population, Vol.2, No.1 (March 2004)
migration (e.g., Kanapathy, 2001) - have not helped inaddressing the problem of unauthorized migration. Since
the 1990s, estimates of Malaysia’s migrant population
hover around 1.2 million, of whom Indonesians are thelargest group. Also, since the 1990s, the running assumption is that some 60 percent of migrants are in the country under unauthorized conditions (see Wong and Teuku
Afrizal, 2003:172). Several amnesty programs had been
carried out as well as innumerable crackdowns vs. unauthorized migrants, but these have had limited results. The
most recent measure was the introduction of amendments
to the Immigration Act in 2002. Aimed at dealing withunauthorized migration “decisively,” the amendments
provided for more punitive measures: a fine of M$10,000,
six months to five years in jail and caning for those whoenter Malaysia illegally.
Another focal point is the BIMP-East ASEAN
growth area,7 with the sultanate of Brunei and Sabah in
East Malaysia as the core areas receiving migrants fromIndonesia, the Philippines and the rest of Southeast Asia.
Brunei receives mostly legal workers from neighboring
Southeast Asian countries (including Malaysia); in contrast, Sabah’s migrant population is mostly unauthorized,with migrants originating from the Philippines and Indonesia. As in Peninsular Malaysia, the migrants had arrived spontaneously in Sabah prior to the developmentof labor migration policies. Also, the long history of exchanges between Sabah on the one hand, and the Philippines and Indonesia on the other, have created social networks across the borders which facilitate the flow of information, resources and support that reduce the risks of
migration and the unfamiliar.
In Northern ASEAN or mainland Southeast Asia,
Thailand is the hub of migrants from Burma, Cambodia
and Laos. A notable feature of migration into Thailand is
the preponderance of unauthorized migration, largely
from Burma, and from Cambodia. The migrants also arrived in Thailand spontaneously to look for jobs when
the Thai economy was doing very well. In the case of
Burmese migrants, political reasons were also a push factor in migrating to Thailand. Since the migrants are already in the country - and Thailand also needed the workers - Thailand attempted to bring the situation under control through registration programs. Those who register,
however, are only part of a larger population of unauthorized migrant workers in the country. Moreover, studies
suggest that migrant workers have brought or have been
joined by their families in Thailand. The long borderSoutheast Asia has a very diverse migration profile, including countries of origin (the major ones being
the Philippines and Indonesia,), countries of destination(Singapore, Brunei), and countries which are both origin
and destination (Malaysia and Thailand). Intraregionalmigration is very intense in Southeast Asia: for the mostpart, labor circulates within the sub-region (see below).
The Philippines and Indonesia have emerged as major
sending countries, catapulted in part by the establishmentof a state-driven overseas employment program. The
Philippines sends all types of workers not just to othercountries in Asia but to all the world’s regions while Indonesia sends most of its workers to Malaysia and the
Middle East, and more recently to Singapore, Taiwan andHong Kong. Legal migration from the Philippines andIndonesia is dominated by women, most of whom work
abroad as domestic workers, and in the case of the Philippines, entertainers as well. Vietnam embarked on a labor migration program in 1994, initially sending workers to the Middle East and later expanding to East Asia.
Burma, Cambodia and Laos are also countries of origin,but most migration from these countries is unauthorized
and the destination is mainly Thailand. Prior to the 1980s,
Thailand was a country of origin, sending workers to theMiddle East. With economic growth, Thailand became acountry of destination. When the economic crisis hit Thailand in 1997, it resumed the deployment of Thai workers, with Taiwan as a major destination. While legal migration is male-dominated, female migrants figure more
prominently in unauthorized migration, including trafficking to Japan and other countries.
The configurations of origin-destination countries
in Southeast Asia can be grouped into three migration
systems:
One node consists of Malaysia and Singapore as
the core countries, attracting migrants from neighboring
Indonesia and the Philippines, as well as from South Asia.5
These two receiving countries present interesting contrasts. As mentioned earlier, by anticipating their needfor migrant workers, Singapore was able to establish asystem for regulating migrant workers before their arrival. As a result, Singapore has been able to contain unauthorized migration. Malaysia, on the other hand, hasmore unauthorized workers than legal ones. In Malaysia’scase, the migrants had already arrived before Malaysia
came up with policies to regulate labor migration in 1991.
6
The inconsistent implementation of policies and frequent
policy changes - some see this as flexibility in managing

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The Japanese Journal of Population, Vol.2, No.1 (March 2004)
Regardless of the context, there are some commonalities that run through the different migration systems: migration is not decreasing; unauthorized migration is significant; government involvement (both in theorigin and destination countries) is palpable; and the limited dialogue and cooperation between countries of origin and destination.

shared by Thailand and Burma greatly facilitates the
movement of people. After several failed attempts, it ishoped that the work permit system in 2004 would solve
the problem of unauthorized migration. In preparation
for the implementation of the new policy, Thailand has
started a series of repatriation drives
South Asia is mostly a region of origin. Except
for India, the government is very much involved in overseas employment in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.8
Most migration flows from South Asia are directed to theMiddle East;9 and with the exception of Sri Lanka, all therest deploy mostly male workers. There is also significant intraregional migration in South Asia, a large part ofwhich is irregular migration. Some of the problems related to irregular migration have their roots in the 1947
partition, and later in the separation of Bangladesh from
Pakistan in 1971. Population displacement, the redrawing of national borders, and people finding themselveson the wrong side of the border reverberate in the present
as border conflicts and the blurred distinctions between
citizens and “illegals.”10 In recent years, there is growing

The Inevitability of Labor Migration
Prior to the 1980s, there were some speculations
that perhaps the path to development in Asia was different because it did not have to bring in migrant workers as
Western Europe did in an earlier time. The World Bank
(1993) study on the East Asian economic miracle andsimilar analyses were curiously silent on the role of labor
migration in promoting and maintaining development processes in the region. Later literature and the works of
migration scholars would acknowledge that the high performing economies in Asia had to import workers fromthe less developing countries in the region.
If an official labor migration policy were used as
an indication of the need for migrant workers, indeed
Japan would appear to have no need for such workers.
The low proportion of foreigners in its population, andin particular, the low proportion of foreigners in its workforce departs from the pattern commonly observed inother advanced economies.12 When its economy took off
in the 1970s, it did not recruit migrant workers - not in
the same way that Western Europe or the Gulf countries.
According to some Japanese scholars, Japan managed tomeet the labor requirements of an expanding economy
locally by absorbing rural-urban migrants, tapping
women workers and other part-time workers (e.g., students, the elderly), working longer hours, and investingin technology and automation (cited in Kondo, 2002:416417). Large Japanese companies also resorted to off-shore
production. Small and medium-sized companies, however, could not afford automation or off-shore production. Employers in this sector, in fact, had fact been lobbying the government to import less skilled workers as
early as the late 1960s (Oishi, 1995). But Japan, thenand now, remains firm in adhering to a policy of not admitting less skilled workers. This reluctance and wariness about foreigners derives from the concern to preserve the country’s homogeneous makeup (Kondo,
2002).13 Without changing its policy, Japan responded tothe clamor for less-skilled workers by allowing the admission of Nikkeijin (the “front-door”); introducing

recognition that trafficking in persons, especially womenand children is significant in the region, with Bangladesh
and Nepal as major sources of victims who are trafficked
to India. South Asia is also a source region of children specifically boys - trafficked to the Middle East as camel
jockeys.
East Asia, except China,11 is mostly a region ofdestination. Compared to receiving countries in Southeast Asia, the share of foreigners in the population or in
the labor force tends to be smaller in Japan, Korea, Hong
Kong and Taiwan. Despite differences in the initiation oflabor migration, Japan and Korea ended up with similar
policies: no admission of less skilled migrant workers
and establishing a trainee program. Japan has managed
to control unauthorized migration; in Korea unauthorized migration is much larger than legal migration andthere is a sense that the problem has gone out of control.
Various amnesty programs have not made a significant
dent in reducing unauthorized migration. As critics havenoted, the problem stems from the abuses in the trainee
system, which breed unauthorized migration (e.g., Kim,
2003). The introduction of the work permit system in 2004
is intended to curb unauthorized migration. In contrast,
Hong Kong (in the 1970s) and Taiwan (in the 1990s)
designed policies to accept and regulate the importationof less skilled migrant workers. Both have managed tokeep unauthorized migration at relatively low levels.

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The Japanese Journal of Population, Vol.2, No.1 (March 2004)
trainee program (the “side-door”); or “allowing” someunauthorized migration (the “back door”) (e.g.,
Yamanaka, 2003).
Elsewhere in Asia, other receiving countries did
not avoid importing migrant workers at some point during the development process, resulting in the formulation of policies which have varying levels of openness inacknowledging this need. The most open in this sense isSingapore, which recognized the need for foreign workers way back early on, even before its economy took off,
and more importantly, before it brought in migrant workers. Singapore distinguishes between the highly skilled
and the less skilled. The regulation of the latter rests on asystem of quota (in order to ensure that local workers are
not replaced by cheaper migrant workers) and the imposition of levies (in order to discourage employers fromrelying on cheap migrant workers and do away with technological innovations). Despite these measures,Singapore has not reduced its reliance on migrant workers. As of the 2000 census, foreign workers account for
29 percent of its workforce. Among the migrant workers
are some 140,000 foreign domestic workers, whose work
has allowed local women to join the labor market.
Other receiving countries - South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Taiwan - fall in between
the “ideal types” that Japan and Singapore represent. As
their economies took off, these countries reached full
employment, their local workers acquired more education and moved into better jobs. In the course of thesechanges, local workers eschew less-skilled, low-paying
jobs (or what is commonly referred to as 3D jobs - dirty,
difficult, dangerous), resulting in labor shortages in lesscompetitive industries or sectors.
Jobs in manufacturing, plantations, fishing and ricemill industries, construction and domestic work became
the jobs filled by migrants. Labor markets in the region,
thus, are segmented into a labor market for nationals anda labor market for migrants. The experience during thecrisis of 1997 confirmed that nationals and migrants occupy distinct labor niches. This was highlighted by thepersistence of labor shortages in the 3D sectors at a timeof high domestic unemployment. When migrants were
repatriated, local workers did not move into the jobs that
migrants had vacated - contrary to the expectations ofpolicymakers. Malaysia, Thailand and Korea had a difficult time in filling migrants’ jobs; as a result, they had tomodify their repatriation plans to meet the labor shortage
in some industries (Battistella and Asis, 1999).

One by one, therefore, the high performing economies in Asia devised a policy to admit and regulate labor
migration. In 2003, the government of Korea and Thailand passed a law to shift to a work permit system. Notably, these two countries had been dealing with very large
numbers of unauthorized migrant workers. After several
amnesty programs in Korea and registration programs in
Thailand, their government decided to establish a formal
policy of hiring migrant workers, which will come into
effect next year. By 2004, all receiving countries in Asia,with the lone exception of Japan, will have adopted apolicy that acknowledges the need to bring in less skilledmigrant workers.

Labor Migration Policies and Their Outcomes
Despite or contrary to policy intentions, labor migration has been a constant in the Asian landscape in thelast 30 years, dispelling the illusion of temporary migration. This reality indicates that labor migration fills a
structural need in the economy. As noted earlier, migration helps in easing labor shortages in the formal andinformal sectors in the countries of destination. Similarly,
in the countries of origin, the objective to keep migration
temporary has been indefinitely postponed in light ofunrelenting unemployment and balance of payment problems. Thus, in different ways, states have an economic
interest in allowing or, in some cases, favoring migration. Recent discussions on migration and development
suggest the need to mainstream migration in development
processes. The role of remittances, 14 returnees andtransnational communities in contributing to the development processes in the home countries are some of theissues that are currently receiving considerable attention.15
Various factors that facilitate and sustain migration have developed over the years. One is the migrationindustry; another is migrants’ networks and transnational
connections. The migration industry has not only retained
its intermediary role in labor migration, but it has also
expanded considerably.16 The migration industry has animportant motivation to sustain labor migration: earnings.
The exploitative practices of recruitment and employment
agencies have increased the transaction costs borne bymigrants. Some actors in the migration industry have also
resorted to irregular practices, including involvement insmuggling and trafficking activities.
The growth and expansion of migrants’ networks

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The Japanese Journal of Population, Vol.2, No.1 (March 2004)
locals, depriving migrants the possibility to form afamily. In Singapore, the state’s medical surveillance
requires women to undergo pregnancy tests twice ayear. In Singapore and Malaysia, women migrants
who become pregnant are repatriated.
Oriented to controlling migration, specifically controlling migrants, these policies have had real consequences for migrants and their families:
1. Migrants are admitted in the receiving countries
as workers - as such, they can participate in the economic sector of the receiving society, but they cannot
participate in its social or political life, and as had
been mentioned, prospects for integration are limited.
2. These restrictions have unwittingly contributed tothe pervasiveness of unauthorized migration. There
are various forms of unauthorized migration. The mostcommon seems to be cross-border flows between
neighboring areas. These are largely undocumented,

and transnational connections is an important development. This is an example of “globalization from below,”of people harnessing resources to promote their interests.
Migrants’ networks are an important source of support
for migrants, enabling them to tap resources (e.g., money,
information) and to draw some social support in the countries of destination. In the absence of efforts to integratemigrants, social networks provide the possibility to havea community life in an otherwise hostile environment.
Despite many countermeasures against settlement,
it is taking place in the countries of destination. Somemigrant communities have been formed in countries such
as Japan (e.g., Komai, 1995; Tajima, 2000), Malaysia (seeWong and Teuku Afrizal, 2003) and Thailand (seeAmarapibal, et al., 2003). In part, labor migration has
paved the way for international marriages. For example,
a contributing factor in the rise in Filipino-Japanese marriages is the migration of Filipino entertainers to Japan.17
Some of these relationships do not work out and as aresult, there is a growing number of Japanese-Filipino
children who have been abandoned or not recognized bytheir fathers (e.g., Asis, 2001). The number of international marriages is also increasing in Taiwan (Asian Migration News, 15 October 2003) and South Korea (Lee,2003). The move towards settlement and the growing
number of international marriages challenge assumptionsof a mono-ethnic society and pave the way for the development of a multicultural society.
Although migration has persisted, the conditions
under which migrants work and live are far from satisfactory. To keep migration temporary, countries of destination have set in place the following conditions:
1. Migrants can work and stay in the countries of destination for a limited duration. Workers are rotated by
way of limited contracts, usually for a period of two
years; contracts may be extended as agreed upon by
the employer and the worker. Taiwan’s single entry,
6-year maximum of work and stay, is unique in theregion.18
2. In order to monitor workers, they are not allowed
to transfer to another sector or another employer. This
forces migrants to stay with an employer even underabusive conditions - or if they run away, they become“illegal” or unauthorized workers.
3. Family reunification is not allowed, which forces aseparation between migrants and their families. Relationships or marriage with locals is not encouraged;some countries of destination prohibit marriage toi.e., migrants do not carry travel and/or work documents (e.g., Southeast Asia, between Korea and China(involving ethnic Koreans). Other forms are the useof non-working visa, overstaying or running awayfrom the original sponsor or employer.
The popular perception of unauthorized migrationis that it is the handiwork of migrants who violate
laws. Insights from a study of unauthorized migration in Southeast Asia suggest that it is reflective of
the following:• Unrealistic migration policies·Migration policies do not reflect the needs ofthe economy; instead, migration policies seemto be influenced more by political considerations.
·Migration policies overly limits avenues forlegal migration, thereby severely restricting migrants’ options to look for better working conditions or to be with their families.
• Unauthorized migration is symptomatic of the contradictions of globalization which allows for theborderless flow of goods and capital, but not theborderless flow of people. Given economic disparities and the lack of legal channels to migrate, unauthorized migration indicates migrants’ assertion or
claim to global citizenship.
The typical responses to unauthorized migration
are more border controls, more punitive measures, or
repatriation - measures which punish migrants, without addressing the other actors and institutions (in-24The Japanese Journal of Population, Vol.2, No.1 (March 2004)
cluding the state and its policies) which contribute tounauthorized migration. None of these had had lasting impacts on curbing the problem.
In our study of unauthorized migration in Southeast Asia, we have advanced that legal and unauthorized migration are part of one migration system. Theirdeterminants are similar; both are also facilitated byvarious intermediaries. Furthermore, legal and unauthorized migrants are not two distinct groups. They
only differ in their access to legal or unauthorizedchannels of migration (Battistella and Asis, 2003:1314).
3. Labor migration has given rise to transnationalfamilies, or families with members located in different locations. Family separation is not new - in thepast, migration has also kept families apart. What is
new about transnational families is the facility withwhich migrants can maintain contacts with the families left behind. The contacts allowed by better andcheaper communication and transportation facilities
are contributing to the development of “new” waysof being family. On the other hand, transnational families also indicate that families are forcibly separated
because family members are not allowed to be together. The forced separation of family members haveemotional costs that do not easily figure in the calculation of costs and benefits. Research findings point
to emotional costs, especially on the part of women
migrants who are separated from their own children,
while they care for other children (e.g., Parreñas, 2001;
Asis, 2002; Huang, Yeoh and Asis, 2003). A study in
the Philippines suggests that the mother’s departureis associated with lower school performance and moredifficult social adjustment among young children(Battistella and Conaco, 1998). There is also concernthat extended separation may cause irreparable costs
to marriages, but this is an area which has not beenstudied well. In the countries of origin, some changes
in gender relations have been noted with the migration of women.
Overall, the prevailing migration regime in Asia
exacts direct costs on migrants and their families throughdenial of rights. The dominant paradigm of migration has
been largely economic in which migrants are viewed asworkers. In considerations to maximize the benefits andminimize the costs, the protection of migrants’ rights has
been ignored. In Asia, the “rights-gap” has not been
helped by the lack of discussion of migration in general,and migrants’ rights in particular, in bilateral and regional
fora.19 An indication of the global community’s reluctanceto respect the rights of migrants and their families is indicated by the low ratification of the UN Convention on
the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their
Families. Only two countries in Asia - the Philippines
and Sri Lanka - have ratified it, and they are among the
23 sending countries that have ratified the Convention
thus far.20

Future Prospects
Writing in 2002, Castles called for a rethinking of
the dynamics of migration under conditions of globalization. He observed that policymakers and analysts failed
to anticipate actual developments in international migration in the last fifty years. He attributed this oversight totwo factors: (1) assumptions in migration research, particularly the influence of national models or frameworks,and (2) lack of attention to human agency, particularly
the lack of appreciation of migration as a “collective process based on the needs and strategies of families andcommunities” (p. 1145). Under conditions of globalization, advances in communications and transportation havefacilitated flows of people, ideas and information, resulting in multiple belongings, identities, linkages and community formations which are no longer based on the national model.
Our experience in the region tells us that migration is a reality whose ramifications we need to understand rather than ignore. The trends thus far combinedwith persisting economic disparities suggest that migration is likely to increase rather than decrease in the future. Recent discussions about replacement migration
highlight demographic factors which imply more rather
than less migration. Although “objective” economic anddemographic factors would argue for more migration, thepassage will not be easy.
However, the gathering strength and extent oftransnational communities resulting from migration portend social and political transformations. This development will, at the least, counter the controlling tendenciesof states, especially the curtailment of rights to “manage
migration.” In Asia, there are some signs that somechanges are under way. In Japan, for example, local governments are opening up their communities tomulticulturalism, a marked departure from the stance ofthe national government. Kawasaki City has established25

The Japanese Journal of Population, Vol.2, No.1 (March 2004)
a consultative assembly for foreign residents to hear their
voice in the city administration; Maihara Town allowed
permanent residents to vote in a local referendum in 2002
(Kondo, 2002:420). In Hamamatsu City, Japanese Brazilian mothers and community members have banded
together to address the educational needs of migrant children (Yamanaka, 2003). Likewise in Korea, civil society
has been at the forefront of efforts to draw attention to
the plight of migrant workers and to introduce muchneeded changes (Lee, 2003; Kim, 2003). In the countriesof origin, migrant NGOs have also taken governments totask for inadequate services and assistance to migrants
and their families. A recent development is the move ofsome countries to extend voting rights to their nationals
abroad and/or to consider dual citizenship.21
In a future of more migration in Asia, much remains to be done to promote and protect migrants’ rights.
It is a responsibility that cannot be left to “market forces.”
There is reason for hope, however, and Castles(2002:1664) put it well:
Transnational communities resulting from migration
will, through thousands of micro-strategies, seek security and humane conditions for their members. By
doing this, they will probably become a major factor
undermining the plans of the mighty. The future willprobably be as messy as the past, and all predictions
are likely to be wrong, but one thing is clear: there is
no return to the neat idea of closed-off nation stateswith homogenous national communities.

skilled workers, there are no official inflows of such
workers. In the case of South Korea, most of the migration flows are unauthorized and it is difficult to determine the gender composition of migrants. The Japanese and Korean labor markets, however, have a specific niche for women migrants in the entertainment
sector, who go through both legal an unauthorized channels. Japan legally admits entertainers, mostly from thePhilippines; they are considered “skilled” and are therefore admissible. A larger number of entertainers cometo Japan under unauthorized conditions (including being trafficked) from Thailand and other countries.
4
Other countries of origin which actively promote labormale migration are less inclined to promote femalemigration because of concerns about protection issues.
This rationale could have negative consequences for
women. Some scholars caution that protection issues
and the presumption of vulnerability of all women (especially vis-à-vis men) at all times may lead to control
of women’s movement and also perpetuate the assumption of women’s lack of agency (e.g., Piper, 2003; UN,
1995).
Malaysia is the traditional source of workers for
Singapore. Since 1978, a daily work permit systemsigned by the two countries allows thousands of Malaysians to cross the border daily to work in Singapore.
6
Earlier, workers from Indonesia arrived in Malaysia spontaneously to work in the plantations and construction,
sectors which experienced labor shortages when Malaysia went through structural changes from the 1970s.
The movement of Indonesians to Malaysia also has avery long history.
7
The BIMP (Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines)East ASEAN growth area was formed in 1994 to promote development and cooperation among the members - Brunei; Kalimantan, Maluku, Sulawesi and Irian
Jaya in Indonesia; Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan in
Malaysia; and Mindanao and Palawan in the Philippines. The formation of this growth area is an attempt
to reestablish and formalize the traditional linkages ofcontiguous areas in this sub-region. The promising startof BIMP-EAGA in 1994 was dimmed by the 1997 crisis and later by security issues in the area.
8
There is also significant outmigration from Nepal, mostly
to India, with which it has bilateral agreement (signed
in 1950) providing for the free movement of people
and goods. Nepali workers are also present in the
Middle East and some Asian countries such as Japan,
5Notes
The huge demand for workers was too much for governments to handle, a gap which the migrant industry captured. India is rather unique as the recruitment and deployment of migrant workers are basically left in thehands of the private sector.
2
In the 1990s, Israel emerged as a new destination, accepting workers not only from Asia but also from Eastern Europe. The Philippines, Thailand and China are
the major source countries of workers from Asia.
3
The demand for foreign domestic workers in the Middle
East is more associated with the lifestyle goals of upwardly mobile households; in Asia, the demand isdriven by the “caregiving crisis” resulting from theparticipation of women in the labor market. Japan andSouth Korea are exceptions in this regard. Since theirofficial policy does not allow the importation of less1

26

The Japanese Journal of Population, Vol.2, No.1 (March 2004)
the obstacles to the ratification of the Convention in
Asia-Pacific.
20
In 2003, the Philippines passed a law allowing absentee voting and another one allowing dual citizenship.
Migrant NGOs in Sri Lanka are lobbying for absentee
voting for its migrant population. Pakistan and India
are considering dual citizenship.

Korea and Hong Kong.
The singular importance of the Middle East destinations
renders South Asian countries vulnerable to policychanges and events in the Middle East.
10
For example, the question of “illegals” is raised in India (which claims that there are Bangladeshi “illegals”
in India; Bangladesh counters that these are Indian
Bengalis); also, Pakistan claims that Bangladeshis
11
Most discussion on outmigration from China focuseson unauthorized migration, including trafficking inpersons.
12
As of 2002, registered foreigners in Japan reached 1.8
million, percent of the total population; legal foreign
workers numbered 760,000 or 1.3 percent of the labor
force. Japan also has its share of unauthorized migrants,
and again, the proportion is small compared to othercountries.
13
According to Komai (1995, cited in Castles, 2001:187),
the Japanese people have shown little hostility towards
immigrants, but this may be due to the small numbersof foreigners.
9

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New evidence on the role of remittances in the countries of origin seems to fuel this interest. According toDilip Ratha of the World Bank, in 2001, workers’ remittances to developing countries totaled US$72.3 billion, higher than total official flows and private nonFDI flows.
15
The discussion, so far, has focused on the development
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16
For example, there are over a thousand licensed recruitment agencies (and an unknown number of unlicensed
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17
In the past, the ceiling was for two years, which waslater extended to three years.
18
The concern with unauthorized migration and trafficking in persons, especially women and children, initiated regional discussions on migration. The first suchregional meeting was held in Bangkok in 1999, andthis was followed up by similar initiatives. Such efforts can be expanded to address the problems and dilemmas arising from legal migration.
19
See Piper and Iredale (2003) for further discussion on
14

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(Maruja M.B. Asis
Scalabrini Migration Center, Quezon City,
marla@smc.org.ph)28