Foreign-affiliate presence and skilled labour demand

Debates in Singapore about immigration and naturalisation policy have escalated substantially since 2008 when the government allowed an unprecedentedly large number of immigrants into the country. This essay will discuss immigration and naturalisation policy in Singapore and the tensions that have been evoked, and how these policies are a key tool in regulating the optimal composition and size of the population for the state’s imperatives. It will demonstrate that although the state has, as part of its broader economic and manpower planning policy to import labour for economic objectives, it seeks to retain only skilled labour with an exclusive form of citizenship. Even as the Singapore state has made its form of citizenship even more exclusive by reducing the benefits that non-citizens receive, its programmes for naturalising those who make the cut to become citizens which include the recently created Singapore Citizenship Journey (SCJ) is by no means burdensome from a comparative perspective. This paper examines policy discourse and the key symbols and narratives provided at naturalisation events and demonstrates how these are used to evoke the sense of the ideal citizen among new Singaporeans.

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An Overview of Rural to Urban Migration in China and Social Challenges

MIGRATION LETTERS ◽

10.33182//ml.v16i2.664 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. 273-282

Author(s):

Ziwei Qi

Keyword(s):

Agricultural Production ◽

Rural Populations ◽

Urban Migration ◽

Open Market ◽

Labour Demand ◽

Social Challenges ◽

The Past ◽

Internal Migrations ◽

Rural To Urban Migration ◽

Employment Sectors

The rural to urban migration in China represents one of the greatest internal migrations of people in history as rural populations have moved to cities in response to growing labour demand. One major cause of the increased labour demand was the “Reform and Open Market Policy” initiated at the end of the 1970s. The policy amplified the rural to urban divide by promoting a more thoroughly market-based economy with a corresponding reduction in the importance of agricultural production and a greater emphasis on non-agricultural market sectors. As a result, a series of economic reforms have drastically changed the cultural and social aspects of the rural area over the past three decades. Many social problems have been created due to rural to urban migration. These problems include institutional discrimination because of the restrictive household registration policies; social stigmatisation and discrimination in state-owned employment sectors and among urban residents; psychological distress and feelings of alienation.

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Evidences on Household Labour Supply: When Labour Demand is Not Perfectly Elastic

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.1959803 ◽

2011 ◽

Author(s):

Edlira Narazani

Keyword(s):

Labour Supply ◽

Labour Demand ◽

Household Labour

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Migration trajectories of seafarers during the transition from sail to steam: Change and continuity in Antwerp, 1850-1900

International Journal of Maritime History ◽

10.1177/0843871420956488 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 32 (3) ◽

pp. 616-635

Author(s):

Kristof Loockx

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Skilled Labour ◽

The Creation

This article examines the migration trajectories of seafarers who worked on Belgian merchant vessels departing from the port of Antwerp during the second half of the nineteenth century. Based on the Antwerp seamen’s registry, which recorded information on voyages of seafarers on Belgian merchant vessels departing from Belgium’s main commercial port, this article shows that Antwerp’s maritime recruitment area vastly expanded with the advent of steam. The proportion of low-skilled seafarers who originated from inland areas increased as a result of the creation of new departments aboard ship and the emergence of ocean liners. However, established migration fields remained important for the supply of skilled labour in deck departments, which indicates that there was also continuity. The findings suggest that each department had its own dynamics and therefore old and new patterns co-evolved during a period of transition.

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