In developing countries, remittances play a key role as a source of external finance. Remittances are a form of aid that migrant workers send back to their families, located in their home countries, in order to support the needs of the household. In about 25% of developing countries, remittances are larger than public and private capital flows combined (International Monetary Fund, 2009). In 2008, the Philippines economy was the 47th largest economy in the world with a GDP of $322 billion dollars (Asian Development Bank, Fact Sheet). Remittances accounted for over 10% of the Philippine economy, making the Philippines one of the world’s highest remittance receiving countries. Using a probit model and an OLS regression model focusing on the Philippines in 2003, this paper will focus on exploring what variables influence the decision to send a household member away for work, what factors contribute to whether or not a household receives a remittance and if they do, how these same characteristics affect the value of the remittance.

Background: Good knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) of HIV prevention are essential in order not to acquire HIV infection and to prevent the disease from spreading. A proper and well functioning prevention of HIV requires clear and relevant information and instructions from health care givers. Aim: The purpose of this study was to investigate the knowledge, attitudes and practices concerning HIV prevention among Burmese migrant workers in Thailand and compare these between genders. Method: A descriptive and comparative cross-section design with a quantitative method was used. The Health belief model was provided as theoretical framework. The data was collected at two fish industries and at the health clinics of these industries in the Samut Sakorn Province, Thailand. Eighty migrant workers participated by answering a questionnaire about KAP of HIV prevention. Results: Most of the Burmese migrant workers had heard of HIV/AIDS, and overall women had better knowledge than men. Less than 50% of the men reported they had ever received information on HIV. There were significant differences between genders in several statements concerning knowledge, attitudes and practices. Conclusions: The male and female Burmese migrant workers had different knowledge, attitudes and practice of HIV prevention. Health care professionals should consider gender and culture when providing intervention programs to migrant workers. / Bakgrund: Goda kunskaper, attityder och utövande (KAP) av HIV prevention är av stor vikt för att ej smittas av HIV och för att förhindra att sjukdomen sprids. En korrekt och välfungerande prevention av HIV kräver tydlig och relevant information och instruktioner från hälso- och sjukvården. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka kunskap, attityder och utövande av HIV prevention bland invandrade burmesiska arbetare I Thailand, och jämföra dessa mellan kön. Metod: En beskrivande och jämförande tvärsnittsdesign med kvantitativ metod har använts. The Health belief model användes som teoretiskt ramverk. Data samlades in vid två fiskeindustrierna och deras hälsoklinik i Samut Sakorn provinsen, Bangkok, Thailand. Åttio invandrade arbetare deltog genom att besvara ett frågeformulär om KAP av HIV prevention. Resultat: De flesta invandrade burmesiska arbetarna hade hört talas om HIV/AIDS, och generellt hade kvinnorna bättre kunskap än männen. Mindre än 50% av männen rapporterade att det någonsin hade fått information om HIV. Det var en signifikant skillnad mellan könen i flera av påståendena om kunskap, attityder och utövande.  Slutsats: De manliga och kvinnliga invandrade burmesiska arbetarna hade olika kunskaper, attityder och utövande av HIV prevention. Hälso- och sjukvårdspersonalen bör överväga genus och kultur vid tillhandahållande av interventionsprogram för invandrade arbetare.

Feminist geographic debates have drawn attention to the multi-scalar role of borders as processes of social differentiation that are reproduced and inscribed on the bodies of migrant workers in everyday life. This thesis explores these questions in the context of Singapore’s global city-state where the increasing visibility of low-wage foreign workers in local residential areas has become a subject of tense neighbourhood frictions that frequently bring borders into sharp relief. Using the case-study of a recent public furore surrounding the proposed location of a foreign worker dormitory in Serangoon Gardens, one of Singapore's well-known middle-class estates, it examines the ways that migrant exclusions in local residential areas are informed by border anxieties and practices that mark out the labouring bodies of foreign workers as alien and “out of place.” The Serangoon Gardens incident exhibited a moment of tension whereby gendered, racialised, and class-based meanings attached to specific forms of flexible labour (particularly foreign construction and domestic work) were inserted into wider debates about nation, community, and the socio-spatial preservation of middle-class identity and belonging. Insofar as Singapore’s growth remains undergirded by the systematic in-flow of low-wage foreign workers to service its infrastructural and social reproductive labour needs, a study of borders helps illuminate the inherent contradictions and barriers of mobility within the global city as an exclusionary landscape. This thesis argues that the deeply marginalised place of foreign workers in society stems predominantly from the constitutive role of the state’s managerial migration regime in shaping everyday social meanings and practices that construct these workers as unassimilable subjects within the city-state. The outcome of these multi-scalar forms of bordering practices has been to produce a transient, depoliticised, and governable migrant population in the interests of security and economic prosperity in Singapore’s global city-state. / Thesis (Master, Geography) -- Queen's University, 2010-05-11 15:31:12.683

In 1955 and 1966 Canada opened its doors to a limited number of Caribbean domestic workers and seasonal agricultural workers. Canadian government officials remarked that the programmes were part of Ottawa’s aid package to the Caribbean and that they would enhance trading relationships between Canada and the Caribbean, a view which had been echoed by other writers on the topic. This thesis argues that both programmes were instituted after Canada had exhausted all attempts to recruit adequate European labourers. The thesis also argues that both programmes were deliberately designed and executed to ensure that Canada got maximum benefits at low cost. Canada also attached unprecedented conditions to both schemes in an effort to significantly reduce the number of workers recruited. The thesis provides a thorough examination of the proposals by Caribbean governments, together with interest groups from Canada, to persuade Canada to establish these migrant programmes and the excuses and refusals by Canada to those proposals. The thesis documents the increasing recruitment of Mexican agricultural workers at the expense of Caribbean workers which further dispels the view that the migrant programmes were part of an aid package to the Caribbean. The thesis notes that unlike the domestic programme the agricultural programme was not a route towards landed immigrant status.

Migrant workers in China tend to suffer from inferior status and hardship in the workplace. Domestic private enterprises have become highly market-oriented and have been criticized for exploiting workers; however, some of them have started to pay increasing attention to motivating and retaining workers. The well-being of migrant workers is worthy of study. This study collected survey data from migrant workers in two Chinese private enterprises in the cosmetics industry, aiming to probe how a harmonious and supportive working environment may benefit workers. It is argued that HR???s assistance to line managers can be conveyed to workers via supervisors, leading to perceptions of a supportive working system (represented by the behaviour of HR, managers and supervisors). This kind of system is likely to promote employees??? identification with the organisation and social exchanges with organisational members. Further, these may improve workers??? psychological state and cooperative worker relations. This thesis starts by presenting migrant workers??? experience and discussing how HRM is practised in Chinese private enterprises. Studies of organisational support are introduced as a foundation to explore the influences of HR on employee outcomes???emotional exhaustion and co-worker assistance???through the mechanism of supervisor support. The results validate the substantial role of effective HR assistance to line managers and the role of the supportive supervisor in improving employees??? well-being and in facilitating helping behaviour among co-workers. Finally, implications for management practices and future research are considered.

This research focuses on the special considerations and reasons for Burmese migrants and refugees from Burma living in Mae Sot, Tak province, Northern Thailand to stay in Thailand or return to Burma/Myanmar. The researcher has more than three-years of experience of living and working in Northern Thailand. During the thesis process, the researcher lived and worked in Mae Sot. A multi-method approach was applied to compile the experiences, knowledge, opinions and feelings of migrants and refugees from Burma. The research presented in this thesis shows that, even though the push factors from leading a life in Thailand are increasing in terms of obtaining legal documents, the pull factors towards return or repatriation to Burma remain few for refugees and migrants. In terms of the labour situation, migrants can earn more money and get more value for their money in Thailand. In addition, access to affordable education and health care is much greater in Thailand than in Burma, mostly due to initiatives by international non-governmental actors. In Burma, poverty continues to be an endemic challenge: there are difficulties for families to sustain their livelihoods and obtain access to quality healthcare and education. The findings from the research explain that migrants from Burma, many of which represent a marginalized minority in terms of ethnicity and religion, do not consider a future in Burma for themselves or their families if not forced to leave Thailand.   In particular, the Myanmar Muslim subpopulation and those with lower education possess experiences or have perceived discrimination of a potential future in Burma, largely related to issues with identification documents and registration. In addition, lack of land ownership remains a large obstacle for migrant workers and refugees in the consideration of where to live and work in the future.

Within the broader literature on migration, Japan is often portrayed as straddling two categories, one of a homogenous country and another of a multicultural society. The arguments on both sides are supported through the historical evidence, analysis of media resources, as well as narratives of Japanese residents. This inquiry seeks to highlight voices of migrants within these debates. This dissertation focuses on the urban – rural residential experiences of international migrants in Kanto and Tohoku regions. This inquiry treats international migration processes in terms of moving between the contexts of different countries as well as between urban – rural locations. These global – local experiences of migrants are set within broader milieu of the social and spatial stratifications created through neoliberal competition. The theoretical framework for this analysis is based on post-structural understandings of identity, migration, and economy. This study draws on qualitative methods, including, ethnographic data, interviews, content and textual analysis of job advertisements, as well as cognitive mapping. These sources allow us to create a unique portrait of migrant subjectivity that pulls from different contexts of fluid, spatial identities which mediate migrants’ interpretations of living and working in neoliberal Japan. The findings of this dissertation support the thesis that intersectional social identities such as gender, ethnicity, and social class, have a spatial component.

This research employs critical theories of citizenship to investigate the role of rural-to-urban migrant workers in the construction and transformation of citizenship in China. Migrant workers have long been portrayed as uncivilised and uncultured Others in contrast to the modern and urban Self in China. This binary discourse has been accompanied and strengthened by a citizenship regime based on the hukou (household registration) system, whereby access to citizenship rights in the cities is only provided for those registered as urban-hukou-holders and is thus denied to rural migrants. Through the analysis of findings from a year of fieldwork conducted among non-governmental organisations (NGOs) established by migrant workers in China, I enquire into the new ways of conceiving citizenship in China. These are the ways which go beyond the bifurcated rural-urban citizenship status and the passivity of docile and neoliberal subjects, and which instead transform citizenship via the self-remaking of migrant workers into 'worker-citizens', who utilise the urban as a new space of struggle for belonging and rights. This self-transformation is conducted through ‘acts of citizenship’, that is acts which challenge the contemporary citizenship construction in China and which simultaneously transform the performer into an activist citizen (Isin and Nielsen, 2008). By looking at how migrant workers perform ‘acts of citizenship’ around the three ‘sites’ of NGOs, labour and space, this research contends that citizenship in China does not have to be bound to the set of rights defined by the state, but rather that it can be remade by the active participation in politics of those who are normally excluded as non-citizens.

My thesis asks why Taiwan does not facilitate a path to citizenship to recent immigrants, despite the obvious advantages to do so, as the government’s attempt to promote its society as a model of civic nationalism in Asia, in relation to the pressing need to address labour shortages caused by population aging. I argue that the political economy of care provision that seeks to address the latter problem trumps concerns over national identity. I will look at the changes in the supply of labour in the sector of care since the 1990s as the evidence. Taiwan illustrates the case of East Asian nations’ rapid transition to post-industrial societies, which are now confronted with acute socio-demographic and care crises stemming from aging populations, low fertility rates and a traditional reliance on the family to provide social welfare. This thesis argues that this change in the supply of labour represents a key indicator of the multiple dimensions of the question of exclusion faced by migrant domestic workers in Taiwan. Civil society actors promoting Taiwan’s civic nationalism in the feminist and labour movements and in a few religious associations are unable to address the rights of foreign live-in caregivers because of the dynamics of the political economy of care in Asia and its dependence on migration for reproductive labour.

This thesis looks at the effect of industrial and occupational segregation on the wage differential between resident and migrant workers in China. It extends the work of Meng and Zhang (2001) by considering the possible employment segregation of resident and migrant workers by both industry and occupation. I contend that industry segregation is at least as important as occupational segregation for Chinese migrant workers, as most migrant workers in China have come from the countryside to fuel the booming labor-intensive manufacturing and construction industries in the cites. Due to the hukou policy (a household registration system) in China, migrant workers normally face more constraints in searching for jobs in other sectors. My empirical study confirms that the proportion of the resident-migrant worker wage differential that is explained by industrial segregation is much larger than that explained by occupational segregation. Taking both industrial and occupational segregation into account explains the substantial wage differential between resident and migrant workers, which indicates the influence of industrial and occupational barriers on the wage differential in China.