1. Introduction
1.4 Literature Review
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1.4 Literature Review
In historic times, hunters, nomadic tribes, and farmers moved when the environment became no longer viable for their livelihood. In other words, human migration has existed since human existence. Large international migration began in the 16th century during the age of European expansion. In the 19th and 20th centuries, industrialization and innovations in shipping and railways accelerated the growth of international migration.
Researchers in the field of migration generally agree that the reasons for migration include social reasons such as family reunion, political reasons, and more commonly, economic reasons (Chan, 2005). People leave their mother country and migrate to another country mainly to seek a better living. All these movements of people have been influenced by push and pull factors such as inadequate income levels in the home country, better jobs available abroad, opening of borders, easier mobility due to better communications and transportation infrastructure, and the increasing need for services around the world (Calzado, 2007). Many universal theoretical frameworks have been applied to international relations, from Marxist analysis of global capitalism to more recent presentations in terms of world-systems theory. But these have essentially referred to relationships between states, economies or cultures—that is, between relatively independent entities. The essence of globalization is that barriers between these entities are dissolving and open up the possibility of some kind of consciousness (Stalker, 2000). David Held and his collaborators define globalization as ‗the widening, deepening and speeding up of world-wide interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary social life. They argue that contemporary processes of globalization are historically unprecedented and a product of unique conjuncture of social, political, economic and technological forces (Held et al., 1999).
Globalization is a complex web of interrelated processes—some of which are subject to greater control than others. Of these, international migration is the one most likely to
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provoke intervention. Governments are less willing nowadays to block flows of trade or finance but take much more resolute action when it comes to people (Stalker, 2000).
Despite the different interpretations of globalization, its most distinctive features or concepts can be summarized under four main headings: stretched social relations, intensification of flows, increasing interpenetration, and global infrastructure (Cochrane and Pain, 2000).
There is no single, coherent theory of international migration. Current patterns and trends in immigration suggest that a full understanding of contemporary migratory processes will not be achieved by relying on the tools of one discipline alone, or by focusing on a single level of analysis (Massey et al., 1993). Apart from ―push and pull‖
factors of labor migration, there are many other migration theories. Neoclassical economics focuses on differentials in wages and employment conditions between countries, and on migration costs; it generally conceives of movement as an individual decision for income maximization. The resulting differential in wages causes workers from the low-wage country to move to the high-wage country. As a result of this movement, the supply of labor decreases and wages rise in the capital-poor country, while the supply of labor increases and wages fall in the capital-rich country, leading, at equilibrium, to an international wage differential that reflects only the costs of international movement, pecuniary and psychic.
Under the neoclassical economics theory, we can find that in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, numbers of foreign unskilled/semi-skilled workers from Southeast Asia and South Asia in manufacturing, construction, and domestic service sectors have grown due to the growing labor shortage and the attraction of higher wages; the factor on the demand side are the rapid economic development, and the factor on the supply side is the declining total fertility rate (TFR) and rising educational attainment of local people. With growing affluence and more available employment opportunities, even the lowly educated local people are increasingly loath to unskilled jobs or semi-skilled jobs that are usually
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considered difficult, dirty, and dangerous (3D jobs) with lower pay.
The ―new economics of migration‖ theory, in contrast, considers conditions in a variety of markets, not just labor markets. It views migration as a household decision taken to minimize risks to family income or to overcome capital constraints on family production activities. Dual labor market theory and world systems theory generally ignore such micro-level decision processes, focusing instead on forces operating at much higher levels of aggregation. The former links immigration to the structural requirements of modern industrial economies, while the latter sees immigration as a natural consequence of economic globalization and market penetration across national boundaries (Massey et al., 1993). Labor migration may begin for a variety of reasons. Although the truism holds that economic forces often play an important role as one of the root causes of migration, and people tend to move to places where the standards of living are better, this alone cannot explain the actual shape of migration patterns (Salt, 1987:243; Schoorl, 1998). This draws our attention to the role of nation states, geographical proximity, institutions, social networks, and cultural and historical factors in creating new migration patterns (de Haas, 2008). Due to economic globalization, the settlement of foreign population has been a new phenomenon in most Asian labor receiving countries. While government policy dealing with this intricate and challenging ―problem‖ converges partially with that of Western immigrant countries, Asian immigration policies have their unique elements and characteristics structured on the backdrop of its own socioeconomic, political and historical background (Cho, 2011). In all the receiving countries under study, both immigration rules and integration policies have increasingly been related to what is deemed to serve the national interests, including the national security, economic development and social order.
Research revealed that student and skilled migration, in particular, is often circular, taking place in binational or wider international contexts; students and skilled migrants especially have adopted highly mobile and transnational lifestyles. This became evident especially
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among highly skilled respondents, many of whom moved internationally because of their careers or studies. In all destination countries, the current tendency is characterized by selective immigration policies and the intention to recruit labor force, especially highly qualified professionals from abroad (Pitkänen, Içduygu and Sert, 2012). While most nation-states accept “ wanted ” foreign labor, they control the border to prevent
“unwanted” influxes of foreigners from poor countries (Martin, 2003; Martin and Miller, 2000a, 2000b).
Many recent migration flows were unanticipated, and they led to efforts by receiving countries to reduce the influx of migrants. The increase in the number of migrants in many industrial countries has slowed, demonstrating that governments have considerable control over entries and stays (Martin, Abella and Kuptsch, 2006). The preferred labor immigration policies of most receiving countries tend to place most weight on economic efficiency, distribution and national identity (including security) of their citizenry as collectives, less weight on individual rights (related to the employment of foreign workers), and least weight on the impacts on migrants and non-migrant citizens of sending countries. This is perhaps best illustrated by the popular appeal of ―manpower planning exercises‖ behind many countries‘ labor immigration policymaking. Thus, a balanced approach to the design of labor immigration policy would, at a minimum, require policies that protect a citizen‘s right to preferential access to the national labor market; ensure that the receiving country derives net economic benefits from the employment of migrant workers, and prevent immigration from adversely affecting national security, public order and the social and political stability of the receiving country (Ruhs, 2005).
Castles and Miller (2003: 249-252) categorize the acceptance of foreign migrant workers by different nations in the following three categories: the differential exclusionary model (hereafter “exclusionary model”), the assimilationist model, and the multicultural model.
Seol Dong-Hoon (2004) noted that ―the exclusionary model admits foreign workers or
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immigrants only in limited economic sectors, such as the 3D labor markets, and never accept them in civic and political sectors such as citizenship and voting rights. The assimilationist model sets it as ideal that foreign workers or immigrants totally give up linguistic, cultural, and social features of their origin and do not show any difference from the mainstream society. The multicultural model admits and supports the culture of immigrants and sets the goal of policy as coexistence rather than minorities‘ assimilation to the mainstream society‖ (Seol, 2004). By collecting related literature, the researcher finds that Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan may be defined as the mixes of the exclusionary model and the multicultural model; the former model is applied to the management of blue-collar foreign labor from the Southeast Asian countries and South Asian countries, and the latter is applied to the management of white-collar foreign labor.
In Singapore, a restrictive immigration policy has been enforced since its independence in 1965. Singapore distinguishes between the highly skilled and the less skilled foreign labor. The regulation of the latter rests mainly on two policies: first, a system of dependency ratio ceiling; second, the imposition of higher “ levies ” in order to discourage employers from over-reliance on cheap, less-skilled foreign labor (Yeh, 1995;
Chiew, 1995; Hui, 1998). The situation of Hong Kong is similar to Singapore‘s. Historically, having foreign domestic helpers used to be one of the most potent status symbols in Hong Kong, but more recently it became more of a necessity for middle-class families with children. In double-income families, the relatively high wages of Hong Kong‘s middle class women allowed them to employ domestic helpers who relieved them of their domestic duties and child care (Tam, 1999). A similar trend has been observed throughout the region, for example, in Singapore (Yeoh and Huang, 1999) and Taiwan (Lan, 2002, 2003a and 2003b). Today, being incorporated into the global economy, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore are the draws for migratory laborers of Southeast Asian origins (Jones, 2004;
Cheng, 2008).
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While foreign domestic workers are seen as unskilled labor who are potentially competing with local workers for the decreasing number of low-waged jobs, foreign professionals were classified as ―foreign talents‖ that Hong Kong and Singapore wish to attract (Chiu, 2004a, 2004b; Wee and Sim, 2005). The job market of Hong Kong and Singapore has always been open to foreign professionals. Their admission has not been constrained by quotas or job sector restrictions. Under the Employment Policy, foreign residents could apply for work permits as well as residence permits (Wong, 2008). In Taiwan, there has had liberalized foreign labor policy in order to deal with labor shortage since 1990s. The presence of foreign labor has resulted from the state-led capitalist development of Taiwan for the two previous decades (Cheng, 2001; Lee, 2004; Weng, Tseng, Lee and Juan, 2004). However, compared with Singapore and Hong Kong, Taiwan is far from adopting open immigration policy to attract foreign talents there as well as to import foreign guest workers. Consequently, Taiwan has been suffering from the problems of brain drain of highly-skilled professionals and manpower shortage of 3D jobs. Currently, the Taiwanese government is launching some schemes to attract more mainland China-based Taiwanese businesspeople to relocate their businesses back to Taiwan with relaxing the flow of foreign investment and the quota of foreign workers (including blue-collar workers, white-collar workers and mainland Chinese workers).
Rapid economic growth elsewhere in East and Southeast Asia has also stimulated many new migration flows. The newly industrializing economies (NIEs) of Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan have all attracted immigrant workers. Like Japan, they have been determined to increase levels of technology to avoid labor shortages, but have nevertheless had to permit immigration, particularly for industries such as construction that demand large of unskilled workers. Even the NIEs are discovering that the immigrant work force has become structurally embedded in their economies and societies and will not necessarily disappear. All have tried to control the inflows (Stalker, 2000). Singapore and Hong Kong
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have launched some schemes to manage and moderate the inflow of foreign workers (especially subject to unskilled/low-skilled workers) in order to avoid becoming overly dependent on foreign workers; among these unskilled/low-skilled workers, a very high percentage of population comes from mainland China. In Taiwan, alongside the labor shortage, the globalization and internationalization of the Taiwanese economy caused the government to respond with a more liberalized immigration policy and to permit limited numbers of foreign workers to come to Taiwan. As Taiwan is moving towards a knowledge-based economy, the demand for highly skilled workers and professionals increase quickly. Thus the government is revising the immigration policies to attract more foreign talents to enter Taiwan. Meanwhile, Taiwan is increasingly using cross-border marriages as one of the ways to deal with its domestic labor shortage (Lee, 2010). In these three countries, foreign highly-skilled workers are welcomed to migrate to their country with the convenience of permanent residence while classism has played a firm role in preventing guest workers from becoming permanent members. Bablibar (1991) uses ―class racism‖ to refer to such conflations of race and class to divide people into categories that cannot easily be integrated. In anti-immigrant racism, it is most obvious that such racism has been used to exclude working-class people but not immigrants in general. Immigrants with a higher economic profile are considered acceptable as future members of society despite their ethnicity and nationality, while immigrants from lower-class background are excluded or segregated on the basis of their ―incompatibililty‖ in the social, cultural and political sense (Tseng and Komiya, 2011). In Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, the policies divide the foreign workers into two categories: unskilled or low-skilled workers at the lower class; the highly-skilled workers at the higher class. In addition, these three countries all create a separate legal status for lower-class foreign workers to make sure that such workers‘ visits to their country are of a temporary nature. Lower-class foreign workers‘ opportunities to become probationary immigrants are blocked by such a
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recruitment policy (Tseng and Komiya, 2011).
Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan are leading countries in Asia that admit increasing numbers of economic immigrants and marriage immigrants. As a result of immigration, racial and ethnic diversity of the three countries have significantly increased, challenging each country with unprecedented phenomena. Like other countries, the three countries face the tasks of accommodating new members to society as well as helping them integrate to mainstream society. Social integration is, however, far from smooth on the ground. To some locals, newcomers — particularly the ubiquitous mainland Chinese — are commonly seen as uncouth and prone to objectionable behaviors like littering, eating on public transit, and talking loudly in public. Similarly, low-skilled workers and unskilled workers have also been singled out as targets of public backlash. With criminal activity rising, foreigners have also been blamed for the deterioration of public safety. In addition, locals have been feeling the squeeze as they face stiffer competition for job opportunities. In most cases, policymakers are afraid of the nativist perceptions that offering jobs to foreigners puts local workers‘ employment opportunities at risk (Tseng and Komiya, 2011). In Wong Siu-lun‘s (2008) study, he noted that some Hong Kong studies pointed out that mainland professionals from large Chinese cities faced various challenges in their new residence.
Even though they do not experience the same level of social and cultural discrimination like unskilled labors, their adjustment and integration into Hong Kong society have not been easy. The media further contributed to the proliferation of negative images of mainland Chinese immigrants by their reports on the crimes committed by new immigrants and by overstating the pressure they put on the welfare system. Hong Kong people developed a strong prejudice against their ―cousins‖ over the border, and saw influx of cheaper labor as a potential threat to their high wages (Wong, 2008). Longitudinal research conducted by the Hong Kong Baptist University comparing psychological and sociocultural adjustment of foreign and mainland professionals came up with surprising
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findings. Comparing the three-dimensional model of expatriate adjustment, i.e. (1) adjustment to work, (2) adjustment to interaction with local people, and (3) adjustment to the non-work environment, it was suggested that despite cultural proximity the mainland professionals‘ adjustment fell behind that of western expatriates (Selmer et al., 1999a and 1999b). Interestingly, with a decade passing, nowadays, the mainland professionals‘
adjustment still seems to fall behind that of western expatriates in Hong Kong, as well as those in Singapore and Taiwan.
Since the late 1970s, strong movement towards ―localization‖ saw the emergence of a Hong Kong identity that was negotiated in contrast to the mainland Chinese identity. This new identity later became the foundation of Hong Kong‘s ―exclusion mentality‖ which manifested itself in the restrictive immigration system and hardened immigration policies (Wong, 2008). Hong Kong immigration policies are guided by differential exclusion, i.e.
creating attractive conditions for ―quality migrants‖ from certain countries and at the same time introducing restrictions on entry of others (Wong, 2008). Singapore has long been known as Hong Kong‘s key competitor in the region and has been steadily attracting investments, foreign capital and talented professionals. One of the key factors driving the economy forward is its open immigration policy. There is no denying that the open-door policy is a red hot political issue attracting criticism from the local community, but the reality is that it has worked to Singapore‘s advantage. It has been argued elsewhere (Sassen, 2001) that global cities attract different tiers of labor migrants, from transnational highly paid professionals to under-paid illegal to semi-illegal labor migrants, who play an important role in fueling the global economy. This two-tiered labor migration is consistent with the historical experience of Singapore and Hong Kong. The success of Singapore and Hong Kong as a knowledge-based society supported by a service economy would not have been possible without a large pool of immigrants from mainland China, professionals from all around the world and more recently imported workers from Southeast Asian countries
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and South Asian countries (Wong, 2008).
On the other hand, the immigration policies are also dominated by the consideration of national security. Since the 1980s — and accelerating with the end of the Cold War — the content of national security concerns has expanded from the traditional focus on military threats to borders and governments to include non-military sources of insecurity (Rogers &
Copeland, 1993:12). Immigration can be a threat to traditional ideas of national security even if one concludes it has not yet posed such a threat to the country (Morgenthau, 1958:66). With global economic crisis, immigration policies bound to balancing openness and control tend to shift towards the latter and become increasing selective and security-centric. The discussion of migration all over Asia encountered a setback in the aftermath of September 11. The climate has now become more hostile to migrants, stoking fears of migrants as the dangerous ―others‖ (Schucher, 2008). Although Hong Kong has
Copeland, 1993:12). Immigration can be a threat to traditional ideas of national security even if one concludes it has not yet posed such a threat to the country (Morgenthau, 1958:66). With global economic crisis, immigration policies bound to balancing openness and control tend to shift towards the latter and become increasing selective and security-centric. The discussion of migration all over Asia encountered a setback in the aftermath of September 11. The climate has now become more hostile to migrants, stoking fears of migrants as the dangerous ―others‖ (Schucher, 2008). Although Hong Kong has