Marginalized migrants and urbanization in Southeast Asia

• Main Author: WONG, George
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2018
• Subjects: Asian Studies; Demography, Population, and Ecology; Urban Studies
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/4099; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/5358/viewcontent/Marginalized_migrants_and_urbanization_in_Southeast_Asia_pv.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Asia is now the region with the largest movements of migrants in the world. International migration within Asia accounts for a significant proportion of those mobilities, with Southeast Asia a highly popular destination region. Within this zone, Thailand, Brunei and Malaysia receive the highest levels of migrants. The city-state of Singapore, however, tops the list, with the highest total population of international migrant arrivals, and about 53 per cent of its foreign resident population coming from other parts of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) region. Most migrants who move transnationally migrate to engage in low waged dirty, dangerous and undesirable work that many locals will not do. This often places them in marginalized positions, not just in relation to the jobs that they carry out but the structural conditions under which they labor, as state policies often treat them as “needed but not wanted”. In this book chapter, we uncover the different ways in which low-wage migrant workers in Singapore are marginalized as part of Singapore's urbanization and urbanism trends. In doing so, we project these practices, along with the policies and ideologies behind them as part of larger migration regime trends in Southeast Asia.