Recognizing their new positions in the global mobility system, several governments from countries with emerging economies are implementing structures to proactively manage the flow of people across their borders.
The expansion of access to credit through microfinance—now a multibillion-dollar sector—has resulted in profound shifts across the developing world. This article, using Cambodia as its example, discusses the ways in which households are using microcredit in coordination with migration, and addresses critical questions about who benefits from these linkages—and what vulnerabilities they might create for migrants.
Burma, a resources-rich yet impoverished nation also known as Myanmar, rejoined the international community in 2011 after a military junta loosened its grip. Before the Southeast Asian nation opened its borders, Burmese migrated primarily for low-paid, clandestine work in Thailand but also as a result of violence and natural disasters. This article explores how the country’s recent transition has impacted Burmese migration flows.
The U.S. and Australian governments have long grappled with unwanted entries by unauthorized migrants and would-be asylum seekers. Both nations undertook efforts in 2012 to reform immigration detention policies and procedures that have generated significant scrutiny and criticism.
For two decades, Australia has experimented with different asylum policies in response to an increase in refugees and asylum seekers entering the country. A look at the country's challenges in managing a hotly contested political and public debate.
Over the past decade, Singapore's multicultural yet nationalist society has experienced substantial inflows of Asian and Western professionals, low-skilled migrants from across Southeast Asia, and new immigrants from nontraditional sending countries. This, coupled with increasingly permanent emigration of educated and skilled Singaporeans, has presented the city-state with complex challenges related to migration policymaking.
Rarely is migration among the Chinese from Hong Kong, the People's Republic of China, and Taiwan to the countries of the Pacific Rim as cut and dry as the labels "immigrant," "emigrant," and "returnee" suggest. In fact, Chinese migrants from each of these areas of origin share a tendency for traversing between their homeland; country of work, study, or residence; and even a third country as the needs of the family dictate. This article examines these contemporary migration patterns using Chinese migrants in New Zealand as a case study.
In a highly selective way, flows of internal migrants within Taiwan have responded quickly to political, economic, and social changes throughout the nation’s history, and have spurred development of the country’s industrial, services, and technological industries. In the past 20 years, however, international migration has reemerged in relevance and now includes the immigration of foreign workers and wives and the emigration of some of Taiwan’s best and brightest.
Most of China's roughly 145 million rural-to-urban migrants were born after 1980, making this population the "new generation" of internal migrant workers. Having been directly influenced by China's rapid economic growth and recent sociodemographic policy changes, this cohort of rural-urban migrants offers much to learn with respect to their motivations. This article discusses survey data indicating that new-generation migrants have somewhat different motivations and expectations than their more traditional counterparts, such as the desire for excitement, fun, and career development independent of the needs of the family back home.
Public backlash against the detention systems of Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States mounted in 2011 with allegations of unacceptable living conditions, abuse, prolonged detention, and government waste.
The realities of poverty, underemployment, and a large working-age population mean that international labor migration is an expected and necessary part of life for many Bangladeshi men and women. Nazli Kibria of Boston University explains the challenges and opportunities facing Bangladesh as the small nation struggles to balance the need for economic migration and its resulting remittances with the protection of its citizens abroad.
Ronald Skeldon of the University of Sussex maps out the past and present migration patterns of China — the source of tens of millions of migrants around the globe — and discusses the country's budding status as an immigrant-receiving nation.
Indian immigrants in the United States may not want their U.S.-born children to live and work in India, but some members of the second generation are 'returning' to their parents' homeland for economic and personal reasons, as Sonali Jain of Duke University explains.
Discussions about climate change and migration ramped up in 2009, in large part due to a number of conferences and reports surrounding the highly anticipated United Nations (UN) Climate Change conference in Copenhagen.
Over the past year, long-standing discussions and negotiations have resulted in several new information-sharing initiatives that seek to boost security while facilitating travel for legitimate travelers.
Many countries relied on low-skilled immigrant workers during good times. But Japan, Spain, and the Czech Republic have recently introduced "pay-to-go" programs to reduce the number of unemployed immigrants. MPI's Kristen McCabe, Serena Yi-Ying Lin, and Hiroyuki Tanaka, and Piotr Plewa of the European University Institute examine these programs and the larger policy questions they raise.
The world's second most populous country also has a vast diapora spread across nearly every continent. Daniel Naujoks provides a broad overview of Indian migration flows and major populations worldwide, and discusses India's diaspora policies, refugees and asylum seekers from the region, and illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
International migration from Asia grew dramatically in the 1970s and 1980s. Since the 1990s, migration within Asia has risen. Stephen Castles of the University of Oxford and Mark Miller of the University of Delaware examine regional trends in this article based on their book Age of Migration.
Tibetans have integrated into Asian and Western societies since 1959 with different types of outcomes. In Part II of our two-part series, Seonaigh MacPherson, Anne-Sophie Bentz, and Dawa Bhuti Ghoso examine integration experiences, the diaspora's political success, the gaps between those in Tibet and Tibetans abroad, and what lies ahead for the Tibetan diaspora.
