“Guest Worker” Regime in Asia
East Asian host states opened the door to migrant domestic workers in response to labor shortages and care deficits in their societies. Hong Kong and Singapore started recruiting foreign domestic workers in the 1970s in order to push local women into the formal labor force.1 Other countries in the region hold more rigid regulations concerning the settlement of foreigners given that their populations are much more ethnically homogeneous. Taiwan slowly opened the gate with caution in the early 1990s. Japan and South Korea initially only permitted the labor recruitment of noncitizens of Japanese or Korean descent. The situation changed only recently when Korea decided to accept unskilled foreign labor in August 2004 and Japan has been negotiating with the Philippine and Indonesian governments about recruiting nurses and caregivers to provide home-visit care services for their aging populations.
Despite differences in policies, all these host states employ migrant workers on a temporary contract basis. The “guest worker” regime is predominant in European and Asian countries that lack a history of immigration or an ideology that favors permanent settlement.2 In Asia, more restrictive immigration policies are enforced on the basis of state concerns about geographic constraints, population densities, and nationalist agendas. Quota controls, work permits, and levies are widely adopted to control the volume and distribution of migrant workers.3 Immigration is not granted for unskilled migrant workers, although professional migrants (known as “foreign talents”) are entitled to naturalization after several years of residence. The Singapore government even prohibits residency to migrant workers married to Singaporean citizens.
The guest worker regime treats migrant workers as disposable labor, even when recruited to care for needy children and frail seniors in host families and nations. Migrant contract workers live in the country of destination for restricted terms of employment. Through prohibiting migrant workers from permanent settlement and family reunification, host states externalize the cost of renewing labor to the economies and states of origin.4 Such an arrangement allows the host countries to enjoy the labor power of migrants while they are young and healthy. They are, however, sent back home after they age, fall ill, or suffer injury.
The sending state also favors the guest worker system, positioning migrants as temporary visitors rather than permanent immigrants. The sending state often invests in ideological work to secure the loyalty of its overseas nationals as well as the flow of their regular remittances. For example, the Philippine government has promoted the notion of “national heroes” in media campaigns based on the nationalist imagery of “homeland.” In addition, many sending states have established special financial programs to attract overseas remittances, such as offering tax breaks, setting up banking facilities in receiving countries, and requiring the remittance of a fixed share of earnings into government-controlled accounts.5
- Nana Oishi, Women in Motion: Globalization, State Politics, and Labor Migration in Asia (California: Stanford University Press, 2005). [↩]
- Douglas Massey et al., Worlds in Motion: Understanding International Migration at the End of the Millennium (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998). [↩]
- Shu-Ju Ada Cheng, “Migrant Women Domestic Workers in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan: A Comparative Analysis,” Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 5.1 (1996): 139-152. [↩]
- Michael Burawoy, “The Functions and Reproduction of Migrant Labor: Comparative Material from Southern Africa and the United States,” American Journal of Sociology 81.5 (1976): 1050-1087. [↩]
- Premachandra Athukorala, “Improving the Contribution of Migrant Remittances to Development: The Experience of Asian Labor-Exporting Countries,” Migration Review 24 (1993): 323-346. [↩]
