E.g., 04/23/2024
E.g., 04/23/2024
Asia and the Pacific

Asia and the Pacific

Asia has a disproportionate share of the world’s young, working-age population—which represents the most mobile cohort—with resulting major immigration flows to other regions, and increasing intraregional migration as demographic transitions occur at different levels within Asia. The research here focuses on how the labor-sending countries of the region, notably the Philippines and other Colombo Process countries, manage these migration flows and the recruitment process. It also examines other conditions affecting the region, including humanitarian protection challenges, climate migration, diaspora relations, and remittances.

Recent Activity

Cover image for Reassessing Recruitment Costs
Policy Briefs
November 2022
By  Kate Hooper
Cover image for Financing Responses to Climate Migration
Reports
November 2022
By  Lawrence Huang, Ravenna Sohst and Camille Le Coz
A man presents cash inside a passport
Articles
Image of passport page with variety of stamps
Articles
People pulling vehicles from a flooded road in an Afghan village
Articles
Rohingya children sit in Child Friendly Spaces in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh
Articles

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A man presents cash inside a passport

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 ushered in renewed scrutiny of citizenship by investment programs, which allow wealthy Russian investors and others to become citizens of foreign countries. Some nations are now re-evaluating these "golden passport" schemes, which they developed to boost their economies. This article discusses the history of these programs and their evolution, why they have become controversial, and the main beneficiaries.

Image of passport page with variety of stamps

Looking for some of the most often-sought information on global migration? This statistics-rich article draws on the most current data sources to offer a primer on international migration, highlighting its types, the size of the migrant population and growth over time, and major sending and receiving countries and regions. Beyond looking at labor and humanitarian migrants and international students, the article examines remittances and more.

People pulling vehicles from a flooded road in an Afghan village

Climate change is compounding the drivers of displacement and international migration in Afghanistan, which has one of world's largest populations of internally displaced persons (IDPs). This article examines the climate and environmental linkages to displacement and migration, as well as the policy approaches taken by the Taliban and predecessor governments, particularly as they relate to water resources management.

Rohingya children sit in Child Friendly Spaces in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh

Beyond slowing global mobility dramatically, the COVID-19 pandemic sparked a major drop in asylum claims around the world, with the 1.1 million people seeking asylum in 2020 representing a 45 percent decline from the year before. This article examines the challenges to asylum processing during the pandemic, particularly for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

An Afghan refugee receives a COVID-19 vaccination in Pakistan.

Most of the world's refugees live in low-income countries where rates of COVID-19 vaccination remain low. Although refugees have been formally included in many governments’ vaccination plans, a combination of factors has made access to jabs difficult, as this article explains.

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Event PH 2016.10.27 Kate Hooper and Kathleen Newland
Video, Audio
October 27, 2016

Marking the release of All at Sea: The Policy Challenges of Rescue, Interception, and Long-Term Response to Maritime Migration, this book discussion explores the different facets of maritime migration and the challenges governments, civil society, the private sector, and international organizations face in tackling this issue together. Presenters discuss the overwhelming Mediterranean crisis and movements across the Bay of Bengal/Andaman Sea, the Red Sea/Gulf of Aden, in the Caribbean, and the waters around Australia; and the particular challenges for policymakers in each of these cases.

Event PH 2015.12.16 Emigration and Human Capital Development in the Philippines
Audio
December 16, 2015

This briefing in Bangkok launches the MPI-IOM Issue in Brief, Shortage amid Surplus: Emigration and Human Capital Development in the Philippines, which reviews the impacts of the Philippines' successful labor export policy on skills development and human capital growth within the country. While Filipino migrant workers contribute significantly to the national economy with the remittances they send home (over US $27 billion in 2014), this reliance on exporting labor raises an important question: Has the nation’s focus on preparing workers to leave compromised human capital development at home?

Event PH 2015.12.1 LA Live Tower Los Angeles California Ken Lund  Flickr
Video, Audio
December 1, 2015

A discussion on the U.S. EB-5 program, the motivations underpinning recent changes to other investor visa programs in North America, Europe, and elsewhere, and the implications for the future direction of these programs. 

EventPH 2015.9.22 LeftBehindChildrenofAsianLabourMigrants
Audio
September 24, 2015

This discussion, at the Bangkok launch of an MPI-International Organization for Migration issue brief, explores the social and health impacts of international labor migration on the children who remain at home when one or both their parents emigrate.

EventPH 2015.3.26 Womens Labour Migration from Asia and the Pacific
Audio
March 26, 2015

Marking the release of the 12th MPI-IOM Issue in Brief, this event in Bangkok examined the emerging trends in women’s labor migration in the Asia-Pacific region, and the related opportunities and challenges. The audio does not include opening remarks and begins with the author's presentation.

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Recent Activity

Video, Audio, Webinars
May 10, 2022

Marking the launch of an IOM-MPI report, this webcast examines the state of mobility across world regions into the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic—what travel restrictions remain, what policy adaptations have occurred, and how do systems improve for the next public-health crisis.

Reports
May 2022

Despite high hopes that international movement would be revived in 2021 after the deep chill in 2020 with designation of a global pandemic, cross-border mobility remained limited as migrants and travelers faced complex rules, high costs, and uncertainty as new COVID-19 variants emerged. This report assesses global mobility in 2021, including changing use of travel restrictions, their impacts on mobile populations, and efforts to safely restart migration and travel.

Reports
May 2022

Public opinion of refugees and asylum seekers is often portrayed as a binary, reflected in stories of them as “threats” or “benefits.” Yet in reality, people can hold a variety of competing beliefs and concerns about forced migrants and their impacts on society. This report explores these different narratives, the contexts in which they flourish, and the types of initiatives that have been used to try to boost solidarity and ease tensions.

Reports
April 2022

Digital health credentials that verify a person’s COVID-19 vaccination, testing, or recovery status are a central part of efforts to restart international travel and migration. This report explores these credentials’ use to date and persistent challenges, including those related to international coordination and technical compatibility between systems. It also recommends strategies to more fully leverage their potential and make them more inclusive.

Articles

Most of the world's refugees live in low-income countries where rates of COVID-19 vaccination remain low. Although refugees have been formally included in many governments’ vaccination plans, a combination of factors has made access to jabs difficult, as this article explains.

Articles

Immigrants from the Korean peninsula are one of the ten largest foreign-born groups in the United States, but their numbers have actually shrunk in recent years. Immigrants from Korea tend to be older, better educated, and earn higher incomes than the overall immigrant and native-born populations.

Articles

Requirements that international travelers and migrants prove vaccination against certain diseases are about as old as vaccines themselves. In some cases, vaccine certificates predated the existence of government-issued passports. This article explores the history of these requirements, which began with smallpox and have since been applied for diseases including cholera, polio, yellow fever, and, recently, COVID-19.

Expert Q&A, Audio
March 29, 2022

Do host communities respond differently to people migrating because of environmental impacts compared to refugees fleeing war or migrants seeking work? Research discussed on this episode of Changing Climate, Changing Migration suggests the answer is yes.

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