International migration by Ethnic South and Southeast Asians

Abstract

South and Southeast Asia are currently home to—percent of the world's population and as such is one of the main global reservoirs of potential international migrants in the contemporary context of rapid globalization. Moreover, within the region, the last two decades of the twentieth century have seen international migration become part of the calculus of choice of an increasing proportion of residents in the region due to education, internationalization of labor markets and transformation of transport and communication systems. However, while the region contains several of the world's largest ‘labour surplus’ nations and hence potentially (as well as actually) several of the globes major source areas of international migrants the patterns of international movement influencing the region are more complex than a simple ‘south-north’ flow. Although the latter is significant, it has to be recognised not only that south-north migration takes various forms and is a complex two-way process but there are also important migration flows within the Asian region. The types of migration examined include permanent resettlement, refugee movement, labor migrations, student migrations, and undocumented migration. The article summarises these patterns and then proceeds to examine some of the characteristics of the migrants themselves. Here attention is focused on the increasing levels of involvement of women in the movement and their selectivity in terms of skill and education. It is pointed out that while there are important flows of skilled people there are also major flows of unskilled migrants (especially migrant workers) out of the labor surplus nations of the region. The relevance of neo-classical economics theories of migration is assessed and such a theory is seen to be only partial in its explanation. Other elements considered to be important are the proliferation of social networks and the development of an immigration industry in the region. Government in both sending and receiving nations are also becoming increasingly influential in shaping international migration. A number of issues relating to international migration in the region are then addressed. These include the scale and impact of remittances sent home by migrants from the region who are abroad, issues relating to the protection and vulnerability to exploitation of migrants, the role of intermediaries in the migration process, the level of trafficking, people smuggling and undocumented migration in the region, the brain drain, the relationship between migration and economic development, and formation of ethnic enclaves in destination countries.