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28. Managing Mobilization and Migration of Southeast Asia's Population
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Managing Mobilization and Migration of Southeast Asia’s Population 139 By: ROS Size: 7.5" x 10.25" J/No: 03-14474 Fonts: New Baskerville 28. MANAGING MOBILIZATION AND MIGRATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIA’S POPULATION GRAEME HUGO Reprinted in abridged form from Graeme Hugo, “Managing Mobilisation and Migration of Southeast Asia’s Population”, in Development and Challenge: Southeast Asia in the New Millennium, edited by Wong Tai-Chee and Mohan Singh (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1999), pp. 171–214, by permission of the author and the publisher. INTRODUCTION In the 30 years since the founding of ASEAN, the demography of Southeast Asia has changed profoundly in many ways. Fertility and mortality levels have fallen dramatically, urbanisation has continued at a rapid pace, ageing has become a significant issue and family structure and functioning have been transformed. Yet one of the most striking changes in the population has been the huge increase in personal mobility of Southeast Asians as both a cause and consequence of the economic, social, political and demographic changes which have swept across the region. This has profoundly influenced the lives of many residents. Within the countries of the region there have been increases not only in the extent to which permanent redistribution of population is occurring but also in the scale, complexity and significance of nonpermanent migrations (e.g. see Hugo, 1997). Large-scale rural to urban migration has contributed to the urban population of the region which more than trebled from 30 to 113.3 million over the period of ASEAN’s existence while the rural population increased by only a third from 204.7 to 320.2 million (United Nations, 1997). In the present chapter however, the focus of attention is upon population movement out of and into countries within the region which has increased in scale and significance at a rate even greater than that of mobility within the ASEAN countries over the last three decades. No region in the world has been more profoundly influenced by the upsurge in international migration which has accompanied , and been part of, accelerating globalisation trends in the last two decades than Southeast Asia. For many Southeast Asians, the labour markets within which they routinely search for work, and the destinations they consider moving to, overlap national boundaries both within 028a AR Ch 28 22/9/03, 12:44 PM 139 140 Graeme Hugo By: ROS Size: 7.5" x 10.25" J/No: 03-14474 Fonts: New Baskerville and beyond the region. Whereas three decades ago this only applied to a small, mostly male, well-educated elite in the region, international migration is now within the calculus of choice of millions of people in the region regardless of education, skill level, gender, nationality and ethnicity. The resultant complexity is well illustrated in Malaysia which has in excess of two million workers from overseas not only from its ASEAN neighbours of Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia, but also from Bangladesh and from more developed countries (MDCs) like Australia. Yet Malaysia too is a significant supplier of labour to nearby Singapore and also Taiwan and Japan and a source of permanent settlers to Australia. The extension of Southeast Asian labour markets beyond national boundaries is partly a function of growing economic and demographic disparities between the ASEAN nations and the shrinking friction of distance in the region facilitated by more affordable international travel and rapid dissemination of information between nations . However, increasingly this movement is being enhanced and facilitated by two elements which, while influenced by economic and political forces, largely operate outside of them. First, substantial communities of foreigners have grown in several labour-short countries of the region and these are providing the anchors of social networks in labour-surplus nations along which even larger numbers of new migrants are travelling secure in the knowledge that their already established relatives and friends at the destination will ease their entry into the destination labour market and society generally. Second, an international migration industry has mushroomed in the Southeast Asian region made up of a complex interrelated myriad of recruiters, agents, travel providers, lawyers, labour suppliers, employers and government labour and immigration bureaucracies . These groups operate both within and outside legal immigration, emigration and labour regulations to initiate, encourage and facilitate movement of people and especially labour between countries in the region. The proliferating social networks and immigration industry will ensure the continued expansion of international migration in the region regardless of economic and political change. The...