Digital Commons Network^™

Young Women In Cities, Yumi Koh, Li Jing, Yifan Wu, Junjian Yi, Hanzhe Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Young women outnumber young men in cities in many countries during periods of economic growth and urbanization. This gender imbalance among young urbanites is more pronounced in larger cities. We use the gradual rollout of special economic zones across China as a quasi-experiment to establish the causes of this gender imbalance. Our analysis suggests that a key contributor is gender-differential incentives to migrate due to rural women’s higher likelihood of marrying and marrying up in cities when urbanization creates more economic opportunities and an abundance of high-income marriage-age men.

Iskandar Malaysia: International Education Hub For Japanese?, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

A few hundred Japanese families have made Johor Bahru home in the pursuit of English fluency and Global Cultural Capital for their children

Clocking Out: Nurses Refusing To Work In A Time Of Pandemic, Yasmin Y. Ortiga, Michael Joseph S. Dino, Romeo Luis A. Macabasag

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Social science research has long critiqued how professional ideals of public service can ignore chronic problems within the healthcare industry, placing unfair burden on the "heroism" of individual workers. Yet, fewer studies investigate how healthcare professionals actively negotiate such demands for service, amidst increasing workplace pressures and risks. This paper studies Filipino nurses' response to a government policy that banned them from working overseas in order to channel their labor to local hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on 51 in-depth interviews, we argue that nurses' willingness to serve in the Philippines' COVID-19 hospitals hinged on the point at which …

Emigrants’ Citizenship In China, Jiaqi M. Liu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Scholars have examined closely how China’s citizenship regime, namely, the household registration (hukou) system, manages domestic population movements. However, how China’s citizenship regime regulates emigrants abroad remains largely unexplored. In this study, I throw into sharp relief the external dimension of hukou through a genealogical investigation of China’s citizenship policies towards emigrants abroad over the past seven decades. I argue that the otherwise domestically oriented hukou regime also governs emigrant citizenship by first deregistering emigrants who have obtained foreign residency and then selectively restoring those who seek to return to China. This combination of de- and reregistration processes leads to …

Connecting Care Chains And Care Diamonds: The Elderly Care Skills Regime In Singapore, Yasmin Y. Ortiga, Kellyn Wee, Brenda S. A. Yeoh

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Research on the globalization of care work often faces the persistent challenge of building meaningful connections between the movement of care labour at a global scale and place-based frameworks of care access and delivery. In addressing this gap in this article, we propose to take a closer look at how the care-migration nexus produces 'ideal' care workers through a skills regime. Based on the case of elderly care in Singapore, in this article, we demonstrate how state institutions and private agencies attempts to fill local labour needs by producing care workers among both Singapore citizens and migrant women. This leads …

Learning To Leave: Filipino Families And The Making Of The Global Filipino Nurse, Yasmin Y. Ortiga

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This chapter investigates how this process of reconfiguring the “social” plays out in the context of the Philippines’ labor export system and pervasive culture of emigration. Focusing on the case of Filipino nursing graduates seeking to work overseas, this chapter discusses how the success of the Philippines’ labor-brokering process relies on individuals who can take on the responsibility of transforming themselves, mainly through education and training, into desirable workers for future employers. While the migration literature had largely framed emigration as an individual aspiration and project, this chapter demonstrates how families subsidize the Philippine state’s labor export system by taking …

Fractured Lives, Newfound Freedoms? The Dialectics Of Religious Seekership Among Chinese Migrants In Singapore, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper explores the negotiations involved in the process of Chinesemigrants converting to Christianity in Singapore. For many Chinesepeople, migration involves being exposed to religion for the first time,and for some, it involves them converting to Christianity. In Singapore,the conversion of Chinese migrants to Christianity occurs in a context of‘shared’ Chinese ethnicity, which can provide both bridges and barriersto the formation of Chinese Christian identities and communities. This‘shared’ ethnicity causes many Christian groups in Singapore to targetChinese migrants in their evangelisation efforts, which can result inmigrant and non-migrant Chinese communities being formed andfractured through religion. Drawing on qualitative data, four …

The Flexible University: Neoliberal Education And The Global Production Of Migrant Labor, Yasmin Y. Ortiga

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article demonstrates how neoliberal higher education has come to play a distinct role in the global market for migrant labor, where a growing number of developing nations educate its citizens for overseas work in order to maximize future monetary remittances. Located in the Philippines, this study shows how local colleges and universities attempt to impose an ideal notion of flexibility, quickly shifting academic manpower and resources to programs that would produce the ‘right’ types of workers to address foreign labor demands. Based on qualitative interviews with Filipino college educators and students, the article then discusses how such ‘flexible’ strategies …

Professional Problems: The Burden Of Producing The ‘Global’ Filipino Nurse, Yasmin Y. Ortiga

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper investigates the challenges faced by nursing schools within migrant-sending nations, where teachers and school administrators face the task of producing nurse labor, not only for domestic health needs but employers beyond national borders. I situate my research in the Philippines, one of the leading sources of migrant nurse labor in the world. Based on 58 interviews with nursing school instructors and administrators, conducted from 2010 to 2013, I argue that Philippine nursing schools are embedded within a global nursing care chain, where nations lower down the chain must supply nurse labor to wealthier countries higher up the chain. …

Constructing The Global Education Hub: The Unlikely Case Of Manila, Yasmin Y. Ortiga

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper investigates the creation of an unlikely education hub in Manila, Philippines, where local institutions have seen a growing number of international students from Korea, India, and the Middle East. These students seek qualifications in professions where Filipino migrants are highly represented, either to gain an advantage within their home countries or as a steppingstone towards jobs elsewhere. Drawing from current debates on ‘global cities’, this paper discusses how different actors promote Manila as an ideal destination for students by using the country’s unique position within the global market for migrant labor and its American colonial history. Here, Filipino …

Migration: 2017 The New York Times Asia-Pacific Writing Competition, New York Times

Student Publications

This is a yearly writing competition organised by International New York Times (INYT). This year's topic is "Migration" and SMU's law student Averill Chow Mingni was the winner in the University category. See her essay:

• New homes, better lives by Averill Chow Mingni on page 16-17

Learning To Fill The Labor Niche: Filipino Nursing Graduates And The Risk Of The Migration Trap, Yasmin Y. Ortiga

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Overseas recruitment has become a common strategy in filling nurse shortages within U.S. health institutions, sparking the proliferation of nursing programs in the Philippines. Export-oriented education exacerbates a mismatch, however, between available jobs (in both the Philippines and the United States) and the number of nursing graduates, thus increasing joblessness and underemployment among Filipino youth. Pursing higher education as a means to migrate also puts Filipino students at risk of getting caught in a migration trap, where prospective migrants obtain credentials for overseas work yet cannot leave when labor demands or immigration policies change. Such problems highlight the complicated impact …

Impacts Of Migration On Households In The Dry Zone, Myanmar, Bussarawan Puk Teerawichitchainan, John Knodel

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The study analyzes data from the 2017 Dry Zone Migration Impact Survey to examine the impacts of migration on households in migration‐source areas (Mandalay and Magway Regions). The report describes characteristics and patterns of migration and examines effects on material wellbeing and livelihoods experienced by migrant‐sending households, including needs of dependent children, disabled and elderly household members. Based on the empirical findings, the report also discusses how policy and support can be enhanced to increase the positive impacts of migration on migrant‐sending households and to address its negative consequences.

Threat Of Deportation As Proximal Social Determinant Of Mental Health Amongst Migrant Workers, Nicholas Harrigan, Yee Koh Chiu, Amirah Amirrudin

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

While migration health studies traditionally focused on socioeconomic determinants of health, an emerging body of literature is exploring migration status as a proximate cause of health outcomes. Study 1 is a path analysis of the predictors of mental health amongst 582 documented migrant workers in Singapore, and shows that threat of deportation is one of the most important proximate social determinants of predicted mental illness, and a mediator of the impact of workplace conflict on mental health. Study 2 is a qualitative study of the narratives of 149 migrant workers who were in workplace conflict with their employers, and demonstrates …

Transnational Youth Transitions: Becoming Adults Between Vancouver And Hong Kong, Justin Kh Tse, Johanna L. Waters

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In the context of the academic interest shown in the enduring transnation-alism of contemporary migrants and in the modes of transitions to adulthood in different global settings, in this article we examine the transnational lives of adolescents moving between Vancouver (Canada) and Hong Kong. While there is a lot of literature on the parents’ political and economic calculations, there is very little on how adolescents in these situations articulate their geographical sensibilities. We draw on three periods of fieldwork undertaken in 2002, 2008 and 2010 during which we employed a transnational methodology to interview young people in Vancouver and Hong …

Globalization, Modernity, And Migration: The Changing Visage Of Social Imagination, Darlene Machell Espena

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this article, I assert that the recent phenomenon of migration is one apparent and fundamental process that shapes human communities, transforming cultural variation, and distorts the constructs of distance and space. The boundaries of nation-states and identities are constantly being challenged, restructured and interrogated and the trends of modernity and globalization, new ways of projecting feelings and diffusing cultures among displaced communities are produced. The article looks for the new stories that are produced with this vibrant intersection of globalization, modernity and migration. In particular, I focus on the distinct Sikh migrant community in the Philippines: how they have …

Sustaining The Household In A Globalizing World: The Gendered Dynamics Of Business Travel In Singapore Households, Shirlena Huang, Brenda S. A. Yeoh, Paulin Tay Straughan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article draws upon a large-scale survey as well as focus group discussions to examine how Singapore households grapple with the demands of participating in globalized work. It highlights the household as a site of analysis, where individuals engage with contemporary trends of globalisation in their daily lives. Specifically, this article examines the case of Singapore households where one or both spouses engage in business travel. The study (a) emphasises the need to focus on processes that bring about shorter-term transnational variations to a household's daily geographies and how household members negotiate these disruptions; and (b) demonstrates that the transnationalizing …