Key Issues in Contemporary Migration Policies in ASEAN: Prospects and challenges for the ASEAN economic community

Abstract

Labour migrations in Southeast Asia in the 1970s and 1980s were intertwined with processes of globalization and industrialization and played an important role in shaping regional economic and social processes. The migrants' movements also mirrored the traditional links between the more-populated regions and labour-scarce areas and population decline in the latter. Subsequently, many countries' espousal of export-oriented manufacturing policies further led to a greater involvement of women in the manufacturing sector; the rise of other gender-specific niches; and the commoditization of domestic work. Crucially, migration trends also resulted in the predominantly low-skilled workers being positioned in the frames of host states' policies and broader socio-economic issues that have disadvantaged and continue to disadvantage them. The ethnicities and limited range of skills of the low-skilled migrants that correlate with bilateral labour accords also continue to impact on these migrants' movement within the region. Against the backdrop of closer economic integration in ASEAN through the ASEAN Economic Community at the end of 2015, member states have also developed increasingly selective admission policies for professionals and highly skilled foreign workers and migrants' educational qualifications, skills and networks have become important factors in their projected movement within ASEAN. Freedom of movement will be limited initially to accountants, architects, dentists, doctors, engineers, nurses, surveyors and tourism industry workers. What are the prospects of low-skilled workers in the receiving countries from the perspective of the importance attached to freer skilled labour mobility in the region? Will this category of workers experience decent work environments, rights at work and social protections against the larger context of the mainstreaming of gender and poverty reduction concerns? These are some questions that will become increasingly important at the end of 2015.