International Migration And Development In East Asia And The Pacific

The East Asia and Pacific region has an international emigrant population of over 21 million people, who remitted more than USD 90 billion to their home countries in 2010. The region also hosts more than 7 million migrant workers, mostly from other Asian countries. These migrant workers account for 20 percent or more of the labor force in economies such as Malaysia and Singapore and thus play a significant role in the economies of the labor-receiving countries. The aging of the population in many East Asian countries will create significant labor shortages leading to greater demand for migrant workers. For these reasons, international labor mobility is emerging as an important development issue in East Asia with important implications for the Bank’s mission of poverty reduction and supporting sustainable economic development in the region. In this context , this study analyzes the impact of migration on development of the region and how international migration should be managed in East Asia in a way that supports development goals while simultaneously protecting the rights of migrants. The study covers: trends in international migration in East Asia and overarching regional issues such as the links between macroeconomic management and remittances and the role of demographic trends in migration; the economic impact of migration and remittances on labor-sending countries and labor-receiving countries; the migration industry; and the policies and institutions that govern migration.

This volume draws on a rich set of data and institutional analysis to present findings on the impact of migration on the economies of both migrant-sending and migrant-receiving countries in the East Asia and Pacific region. The papers point out that due to demographic trends in the region, managing migration is not a matter of choice but one of necessity, and that while migration has significant and positive impact there are also important policy issues that need to be addressed to enhance migration's development impact and realize its full potential. This book comprises background papers written for a companion World Bank volume, International Migration and Development in East Asia and the Pacific. The authors are leading researchers on migration and development from different countries of the region.

This book uses a comparative historical perspective and a common analytical framework to analyze the experiences of the seven major labor-importing countries in the region: Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand.

This paper discusses international migration and the impact it has, both negative and positive, on development in Asian countries. It demonstrates ways in which international migration can and does impinge on development in receiving areas. Although the paper focuses on examples taken from the Asian region, the lessons learnt are applicable to other regions of the world.

Providing a comprehensive treatment of a full range of migrant destinies in East Asia by scholars from both Asia and North America, this volume captures the way migrants are changing the face of Asia, especially in cities, such as Beijing, Hong Kong, Hamamatsu, Osaka, Tokyo, and Singapore. It investigates how the crossing of geographical boundaries should also be recognized as a crossing of cultural and social categories that reveals the extraordinary variation in the migrants' origins and trajectories. These migrants span the spectrum: from Korean bar hostesses in Osaka to African entrepreneurs in Hong Kong, from Vietnamese women seeking husbands across the Chinese border to Pakistani Muslim men marrying women in Japan, from short-term business travelers in China to long-term tourists from Japan who ultimately decide to retire overseas. Illuminating the ways in which an Asian-based analysis of migration can yield new data on global migration patterns, the contributors provide important new theoretical insights for a broader understanding of global migration, and innovative methodological approaches to the spatial and temporal complexity of human migration.

Includes statistics.

This volume fills a major gap in publications on migration and digital media worlds by bringing information and communication technology (ICT) to the fore of our understanding of migrants’ experiences in, and practices of, connectivity and mobility. During recent decades, migration within and from East Asia has become paradigmatic of the changing substance and patterns of global mobility. Focusing on migration within and beyond East Asia, a region defined by its global migration and its leading role in ICT use and development, this volume explores the pervasive use of smartphones as an everyday reality for East Asian migrants, advocating the necessity of understanding how they live their lives both online and offline. In this respect, the originality of this volume lies in its interdisciplinary analysis of migrants’ activities at the crossroads between physical and digital spaces. Our theoretical innovation and empirical findings will open an avenue to investigate the novel shape and scales of contemporary connectivity and mobility.