Prioritising low-wage migrant workers and their migration projects: A comparative analysis of the laws and policies governing temporary labour migration in East and Southeast Asia

This thesis undertakes a comparative analysis of the laws, regulations, and policies governing low-wage labour migration in the main host countries of East and Southeast Asia and uses available empirical data to assess the impact of different policies on the outcomes experienced by low-wage migrant workers. Singapore and the Republic of Korea (referred to herein as South Korea) are examined in-depth in the second half of the thesis. These host countries have taken different approaches to the regulation of their low-wage migrant workforces, which enables a fruitful and original comparative analysis. On the basis of this analysis, this thesis argues that to make these labour migration regimes—which create harmful economic and employment-related power dynamics—more normatively defensible, low-wage migrant workers’ interests should be prioritised in host county low-wage labour migration policymaking. Low-wage migrant workers who take up employment through these regimes are primarily motivated by the economic gains that can be achieved by successfully completing a migration project. However, most temporary migrant worker programmes are structured such that most of their economic benefits accrue to host country governments and employers, while most of the risks accrue to low-wage migrant workers. This thesis argues that—as the primary economic beneficiaries of these labour migration regimes and the architects of the socially and legally constructed vulnerability migrant workers face when they are employed through them—host countries have a legal and moral obligation to reform them to improve the chances that migrant workers will be able to successfully complete their migration projects. To that end, three policy areas that greatly influence outcomes for migrant workers are identified and prioritised for reform: recruitment costs; labour market mobility; and, protection under host country labour laws.