1. Difference and the Global Order Highly Skilled/ Professional Migration & Migrant Women in World Market Factories

2. 2 Part I. Highly Skilled Migration 1. Definition of highly skilled migrants Highly skilled migrants are those in a profession of an extensive specialised work experience, including architects, accountantsand financial experts, engineers, technicians,researchers, scientists, teachers, health professionals and specialists in information technology (IT).

3. 3 2. What are the factors that make highly skilled workers from developing countries seek employment in developed countries? Pull factors - Wage differences between countries - High demands of skilled workers in - affluent countries - ‘Industry-led’: employers being the major force behind the selection and migration of professionals; governments as ‘lubricators’

4. 4 Push factors - Deteriorating working conditions - Social factors - Political and structural factors The Role of employment agencies (head-hunters) - Internet based recruitment agencies

5. 5 3. Is highly skilled migration ‘brain gain’ or ‘brain drain’ for labour sending countries? ‘Brain gain’? - Theoretically ⇒ ‘YES’ in the longer term - Those returnees could be positive forces in the economic, political and social transformation of a country (Tsay, 2001, cited in Iredale, 2001) - The outflow of abundant health professionals in the Philippines brings financial benefits into the country through remittances. - But, what happens when those experienced workers do not return to their home countries?

6. 6 So, is it ‘brain drain’? - e.g., India’s loss of IT professionals (Iredale, 2001) - The outflow of skilled workers are closely related with country’s development in general (e.g., South Africa)

7. 7 4. Is the code of practice preventing immigration of nurses helping both sending and receiving countries? UK government has drawn a Code of Practice for the international recruitment of health professionals. Is the prevention of health professionals from developing countries solving problems and benefiting in both countries? What about individual choices and freedom of movement for those workers?

8. 8 Part II. Migrant Women in World Market Factories 1. The New International Division of Labour (NIDL) NIDL - the division of production into different skills and tasks and spreading those different parts of production across regions and countries rather than within a single company In the late 1980s, the rapid industrialisation in East Asian Newly industrialising countries (NICs) -> A huge increase of wages in the manufacturing sector in the 1980s As a result … Large Koreans firms (e.g., Samsung, LG, Daewoo) relocated labour-intensive assembling factories to countries with cheaper labour costs (China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Eastern European countries)

9. 9 The Globalisation of Production - ‘Footloose’ global mobile capital → easily relocating their production lines to other countries providing cheap labour - ‘The race to the bottom’ syndrome: non-stop search for ever cheaper labour → high levels of exploitation (‘sweatshops’)

10. 10 2. The Feminisation of Labour High concentration of the women workforce in global factories in Export Processing Zones (EPZs) 65% of workers are women at overseas Korean firms in China, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia. 88% of shop-floor workers are women in nine electronic factories of one industrial complex in Thailand. 85% of the total workforce are women in state owned cotton mills in the export sector in China. 83% of the total workforce (1.6.million) are women in the garment industry in Bangladesh.

11. 11 Why female workers? -Easy to discipline and less likely to unionise -Young women who are first-time entrants into waged labour → most suitable for the operation of global factories -A direct source of cheap labour

12. 12 3. The Globalisation of Production and Migration Internal Migration - Many female workers in world market factories are drawn from the rural subsistence Farming. - Large-scale employment in commercial agriculture displacing small farmer and resulting in rural to urban migration - The expansion of export manufacturing industries in EPZs creating new jobs for rural young women

13. 13 China - A ‘world factory’ - A dramatic increase in the relocation of TNCs → 100million peasant workers having migrated from rural to urban China - 10million migrant workers in Guangdong Province (China’s 2000 National census): Women constitute more than 60% of the total workforce. Those female workers usually come to Guangdong from poorer provinces along the Yangzi River.

14. 14 International Migration - Systemic links between the employment of women and global production in less developed countries and the employment of migrant women in developed countries TNCs creating material and cultural linkages to the countries where the capital originates. - Rural migrants to EPZs as potential international migrants: e.g., a relation between expansion of Korean TNCs’ world market factories in Asia and an influx of Asian migrants to Korea from the countries that have been the central sites for Korean overseas factories (China, Vietnam and Sri Lanka)

15. 15 4. Case study: Migrant Woman Workers in the Manufacturing Sector in South Korea (1) Labour shortages in the manufacturing sector - Small firms remain to operate in Korea because of: small capital base to go overseas; lack of adequate information on operating overseas; geographically dependent and immobile nature of the industry. - Serious labour shortages in the small and medium sized manufacturing firms: shifts of job preferences of Korean workers avoiding ‘3-D’ jobs - Alternatively, manufacturing firms started to hire cheap migrant workers from developing countries, mainly in Asia

16. 16 (2) Gender segmentation in the manufacturing sector Migrant women in the manufacturing sector: Garments (43%); Electronics (10.8%); and Plastics (5.7%)* Concentration of women workers in pre-assembly, assembly, post-assembly or finishing departments in the manufacturing factory Maintenance departments and engineers are exclusively for male workers. *Sources: Lee, H-K (2003) ‘ Gender, Migration and Civil Activism in South Korea ’, Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 12(1-2):127-153.

17. 17 (2) Gender Segmentation in the manufacturing sector Case The factory where I’m working is producing keypads and screens for mobile phones and other small electronic goods. I pick faulty products at the end of the assembly line. On the ground floor there are 40 woman workers, in the assembly line. On the first floor there are about 35 woman workers, in the packing line. And on the Second floor, there are only Korean male workers who work with machines. It is very clear about men’s jobs and women’s jobs in the factory. Men tend to do physically hard work, and women do the jobs requiring close and careful attention. (Marilou, 30, Filipina)

18. 18 (3) Pays and working conditions in the manufacturing factory Case 1 I’m inspecting faulty products in an automobile accessories manufacturing assembly. I work for 10 hours per day - from 8.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. with a 30 minutes lunch break. I also work on Saturday till 2.30 p.m. My monthly salary is only 800,000 won ($800). My job is very tiring. I check faults in very small nuts and bolts which are parts of cars. I do about 10 boxes – one box contains 500 nuts and bolts. My job needs concentration for all day. My eyes hurt. If I don’t finish the checking 10 boxes, I cannot go home and have to do unpaid overtime to finish. (Lisa, 36, Filipina)

19. 19 (3) Pays and conditions in the manufacturing factory Case 2 I work as a machine operator in the mobile phone manufacturing factory. I assemble a screen into a mobile phone handset. The factory is a subcontractor of major mobile phone companies in Korea. I work 12 hours a day – from 8.30 a.m. to 8.30 p.m. It ’ s hard and tiring. I ’ m the only one doing this job in the factory. So it ’ s quite stressful because I ’ ve got a total responsibility for sorting out faulty products. If there is a faulty screen, it ’ s my fault. So you have to carefully concentrate on your job. At the same time, I have to do the job in speed. My monthly salary is 1,000,000 won ($1,000). It is four months ’ salary of a military general in the Philippines. I send 800,000 won ($800) to my family in every month. (Jo, 45, Filipina)