Academic researcher, no current institutional affiliation. Previously at the Universiti Putra Malaysia, Asia Research Institute (NUS), and KANITA (Universiti Sains Malaysia), at different times.
This paper presents the socio-economic profile of households in the Family Dynamics Study (FDS) (... more This paper presents the socio-economic profile of households in the Family Dynamics Study (FDS) (1997-2001) and makes comparisons with the earlier Functional Groups Study (FGS) (1992-1996). For the current study, FGS villages with a high prevalence of child malnutrition were purposively selected. In each village selected, all households were included, and interviews with a structured questionnaire were conducted in April-May 1998. Incomes were generally low and incidence of poverty was high; 49.6% of the households were under the poverty line income, of which 37.2% were poor and 12.4% were hard core poor. Overall, only 23.2% of heads of households were in agricultural occupations, others being primarily waged workers and petty traders. Livestock rearing was widespread (57.8%), and most households (90.4%) owned at least one motorised vehicle, the most common being the motorcycle. The majority of households had refrigerators (73.6%), washing machines (58.8%), and televisions (91.1%); but telephones (42.2%), mobile phones (6.1%) and computers (2.3%) were less common. Although 99.7% of households had electricity supply and 95.1% had either a flush or pour flush latrine, only 57.4% had piped water supply. In comparison to the FGS, poverty in the current study is lower (49.6% of FDS households are poor compared to 55.2% of FGS households), the proportion of household heads in agricultural occupations is also lower (26.9% compared to 55.3%), while all other socioeconomic indicators were better, except for piped water supply, which remains inadequate for households in the current study.
This paper describes the nutritional status of pre-school children and analyzes its relationship ... more This paper describes the nutritional status of pre-school children and analyzes its relationship to various household socio-economic indicators. Padi, rubber and fishing villages from the Functional Groups Study (1992-1996) were selected for having a high prevalence of child undernutrition, and all children between the ages of 12 and 72 months were measured for their weights and heights in April-May 1998. The NCHS reference values were used to calculate z-scores, which were categorised according to WHO (1983) recommendations. Children between minus 2SD and minus 1SD of reference median were classified as mildly malnourished. Prevalence of underweight was higher (30.5%) than stunting (22.3%), while wasting was only 9.7%. Padi villages had the highest prevalence of undernutrition, followed by fishing, and then rubber villages. Mean household incomes were found to be significantly lower for children with worse nutritional status, and undernutrition was higher in households below the poverty line income. The odds ratios for having stunted children were significantly higher for households whose heads were agricultural own-account workers (OR 3.66, 95% CI = 1.37-9.79), agricultural waged workers (OR 2.75, 95% CI = 1.06-7.10), and non-agricultural manual workers (OR 2.49, 95% CI = 1.04-6.00) compared to non-manual workers. Various household socio-economic indicators showed significantly higher odds ratios for underweight, stunting and wasting. After adjusting for confounding effects by logistic regression analysis, however, only mother's education was found to be a significant predictor for stunting, while poverty level and access to piped water supply were significant predictors for both underweight and stunting. Households without livestock were significant predictors for wasting. Thus, this study identified specific socio-economic factors that should be prioritized for policy and research towards the amelioration of childhood malnutrition in rural areas.
International medical travel (IMT) challenges the notion of health care as a responsibility of a ... more International medical travel (IMT) challenges the notion of health care as a responsibility of a nation-state to its citizens, tied to the territory of a nation-state. As patients travel for medical care, they invoke not territorialised notions of citizenship, but make new claims. In this article, the authors propose the term ‘flexible bio-citizenship’ that extends the notion of ‘flexible citizenship’ to describe transnational mobilities for the accumulation of biovalue. They argue that people who travel for medical care come from a variety of backgrounds, identities and circumstances for whom the physical and economic ability to travel and cross borders is a form of flexible social capital enabling them to access levels of care otherwise inaccessible to them. The article explores the implications upon citizenship for a diverse range of people who travel for their health care: from highly mobile cosmopolitan professional expatriate workers, regional border crossers, migrant workers,...
Malaysia is one of the few countries in the world where there has been consistent economic growth... more Malaysia is one of the few countries in the world where there has been consistent economic growth since the late 1980s, making it a showcase for development by none other than the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The latest Asian Development Outlook published by the Asian Development Bank (1995, 1996) points out that Malaysia’s gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to grow to 8.5 per cent and 8 per cent in 1995 and 1996, respectively. In addition the unemployment rate was expected to drop to a new low of 2.8 per cent (New Straits Times, 1 May 1995). Indeed the country’s full employment situation and tight labour market has resulted in a conservative estimate of about two million migrant workers out of a current labour force of nine million.
This research focuses on the migration trajectories of mainland Chinese women marriage migrants i... more This research focuses on the migration trajectories of mainland Chinese women marriage migrants in Malaysia. It finds that their migratory motivations and pathways reveal formerly overlooked mobility patterns that depart from the institutionally organized, commercially arranged, or kinship and social network-mediated migration patterns. The authors argue that the state’s attempts to grow its regulatory capacity, the increasing ‘cost’ of legality and the multiplying of illegal-but-licit spaces through which migrants can navigate produce particular forms of mobile subjectivities which the authors broadly term ‘entrepreneurial’. The aim in this article is to begin to fill this gap in scholarship on entrepreneurialism and feminized migration with an ethnographic study of these gendered entrepreneurial strategies. The authors propose two interlinked concepts in vernacular Chinese – ‘out’ ( chu出) and ‘through’ ( zuan钻) – as a set of lenses to examine the marriage migrants’ variable motiva...
A cross-sectional study to determine work-related musculoskeletal problems and ergonomic risk fac... more A cross-sectional study to determine work-related musculoskeletal problems and ergonomic risk factors was conducted among 529 women semiconductor workers. Overall, 83.4% had musculoskeletal symptoms in the last one year. Pain in the back (57.8%), lower leg (48.4%) and shoulder (44.8%) were the three most common musculoskeletal problems. Significant associations were found between prolonged standing and upper and lower leg pain, between prolonged sitting and neck and shoulder pain and between prolonged bending and shoulder arm, back and upper leg pain. The study therefore showed a clear association between work-related musculoskeletal pain and prolonged hours spent in particular postures and movements.
A study conducted between 1998-2001 on the semiconductor industry in Penang and Selangor found th... more A study conducted between 1998-2001 on the semiconductor industry in Penang and Selangor found that irregular menstruation, dysmenorrhea and stress were identified as the three leading health problems by women workers from a checklist of 16 health problems. After adjusting for confounding factors, including age, working duration in current factory, and marital status, in a multiple logistic regression model, wafer polishing workers were found to experience significantly higher odds of experiencing irregular menstruation. Dysmenorrhea was found to be significantly associated with chemical usage and poor ventilation, while stress was found to be related to poor ventilation, noise and low temperatures.
In a study of mild to significant malnutrition in an urban squatter settlement, the weights for a... more In a study of mild to significant malnutrition in an urban squatter settlement, the weights for age of 297 children between birth and ten years, and the heights for age and weights for height of 197 children between two to ten years were analysed. Using NCHS standards, the overall prevalence of underweight was found to be 18.9%, stunting 15.2%, and wasting 11.2%. Age and ethnicity were significantly associated with the prevalence of underweight and stunting. The growth achievement of children below the age of two years were significantly better off than the older children, and Chinese children significantly better off than Malay and Indian children.
This paper presents the socio-economic profile of households in the Family Dynamics Study (FDS) (... more This paper presents the socio-economic profile of households in the Family Dynamics Study (FDS) (1997-2001) and makes comparisons with the earlier Functional Groups Study (FGS) (1992-1996). For the current study, FGS villages with a high prevalence of child malnutrition were purposively selected. In each village selected, all households were included, and interviews with a structured questionnaire were conducted in April-May 1998. Incomes were generally low and incidence of poverty was high; 49.6% of the households were under the poverty line income, of which 37.2% were poor and 12.4% were hard core poor. Overall, only 23.2% of heads of households were in agricultural occupations, others being primarily waged workers and petty traders. Livestock rearing was widespread (57.8%), and most households (90.4%) owned at least one motorised vehicle, the most common being the motorcycle. The majority of households had refrigerators (73.6%), washing machines (58.8%), and televisions (91.1%); but telephones (42.2%), mobile phones (6.1%) and computers (2.3%) were less common. Although 99.7% of households had electricity supply and 95.1% had either a flush or pour flush latrine, only 57.4% had piped water supply. In comparison to the FGS, poverty in the current study is lower (49.6% of FDS households are poor compared to 55.2% of FGS households), the proportion of household heads in agricultural occupations is also lower (26.9% compared to 55.3%), while all other socioeconomic indicators were better, except for piped water supply, which remains inadequate for households in the current study.
This paper describes the nutritional status of pre-school children and analyzes its relationship ... more This paper describes the nutritional status of pre-school children and analyzes its relationship to various household socio-economic indicators. Padi, rubber and fishing villages from the Functional Groups Study (1992-1996) were selected for having a high prevalence of child undernutrition, and all children between the ages of 12 and 72 months were measured for their weights and heights in April-May 1998. The NCHS reference values were used to calculate z-scores, which were categorised according to WHO (1983) recommendations. Children between minus 2SD and minus 1SD of reference median were classified as mildly malnourished. Prevalence of underweight was higher (30.5%) than stunting (22.3%), while wasting was only 9.7%. Padi villages had the highest prevalence of undernutrition, followed by fishing, and then rubber villages. Mean household incomes were found to be significantly lower for children with worse nutritional status, and undernutrition was higher in households below the poverty line income. The odds ratios for having stunted children were significantly higher for households whose heads were agricultural own-account workers (OR 3.66, 95% CI = 1.37-9.79), agricultural waged workers (OR 2.75, 95% CI = 1.06-7.10), and non-agricultural manual workers (OR 2.49, 95% CI = 1.04-6.00) compared to non-manual workers. Various household socio-economic indicators showed significantly higher odds ratios for underweight, stunting and wasting. After adjusting for confounding effects by logistic regression analysis, however, only mother's education was found to be a significant predictor for stunting, while poverty level and access to piped water supply were significant predictors for both underweight and stunting. Households without livestock were significant predictors for wasting. Thus, this study identified specific socio-economic factors that should be prioritized for policy and research towards the amelioration of childhood malnutrition in rural areas.
International medical travel (IMT) challenges the notion of health care as a responsibility of a ... more International medical travel (IMT) challenges the notion of health care as a responsibility of a nation-state to its citizens, tied to the territory of a nation-state. As patients travel for medical care, they invoke not territorialised notions of citizenship, but make new claims. In this article, the authors propose the term ‘flexible bio-citizenship’ that extends the notion of ‘flexible citizenship’ to describe transnational mobilities for the accumulation of biovalue. They argue that people who travel for medical care come from a variety of backgrounds, identities and circumstances for whom the physical and economic ability to travel and cross borders is a form of flexible social capital enabling them to access levels of care otherwise inaccessible to them. The article explores the implications upon citizenship for a diverse range of people who travel for their health care: from highly mobile cosmopolitan professional expatriate workers, regional border crossers, migrant workers,...
Malaysia is one of the few countries in the world where there has been consistent economic growth... more Malaysia is one of the few countries in the world where there has been consistent economic growth since the late 1980s, making it a showcase for development by none other than the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The latest Asian Development Outlook published by the Asian Development Bank (1995, 1996) points out that Malaysia’s gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to grow to 8.5 per cent and 8 per cent in 1995 and 1996, respectively. In addition the unemployment rate was expected to drop to a new low of 2.8 per cent (New Straits Times, 1 May 1995). Indeed the country’s full employment situation and tight labour market has resulted in a conservative estimate of about two million migrant workers out of a current labour force of nine million.
This research focuses on the migration trajectories of mainland Chinese women marriage migrants i... more This research focuses on the migration trajectories of mainland Chinese women marriage migrants in Malaysia. It finds that their migratory motivations and pathways reveal formerly overlooked mobility patterns that depart from the institutionally organized, commercially arranged, or kinship and social network-mediated migration patterns. The authors argue that the state’s attempts to grow its regulatory capacity, the increasing ‘cost’ of legality and the multiplying of illegal-but-licit spaces through which migrants can navigate produce particular forms of mobile subjectivities which the authors broadly term ‘entrepreneurial’. The aim in this article is to begin to fill this gap in scholarship on entrepreneurialism and feminized migration with an ethnographic study of these gendered entrepreneurial strategies. The authors propose two interlinked concepts in vernacular Chinese – ‘out’ ( chu出) and ‘through’ ( zuan钻) – as a set of lenses to examine the marriage migrants’ variable motiva...
A cross-sectional study to determine work-related musculoskeletal problems and ergonomic risk fac... more A cross-sectional study to determine work-related musculoskeletal problems and ergonomic risk factors was conducted among 529 women semiconductor workers. Overall, 83.4% had musculoskeletal symptoms in the last one year. Pain in the back (57.8%), lower leg (48.4%) and shoulder (44.8%) were the three most common musculoskeletal problems. Significant associations were found between prolonged standing and upper and lower leg pain, between prolonged sitting and neck and shoulder pain and between prolonged bending and shoulder arm, back and upper leg pain. The study therefore showed a clear association between work-related musculoskeletal pain and prolonged hours spent in particular postures and movements.
A study conducted between 1998-2001 on the semiconductor industry in Penang and Selangor found th... more A study conducted between 1998-2001 on the semiconductor industry in Penang and Selangor found that irregular menstruation, dysmenorrhea and stress were identified as the three leading health problems by women workers from a checklist of 16 health problems. After adjusting for confounding factors, including age, working duration in current factory, and marital status, in a multiple logistic regression model, wafer polishing workers were found to experience significantly higher odds of experiencing irregular menstruation. Dysmenorrhea was found to be significantly associated with chemical usage and poor ventilation, while stress was found to be related to poor ventilation, noise and low temperatures.
In a study of mild to significant malnutrition in an urban squatter settlement, the weights for a... more In a study of mild to significant malnutrition in an urban squatter settlement, the weights for age of 297 children between birth and ten years, and the heights for age and weights for height of 197 children between two to ten years were analysed. Using NCHS standards, the overall prevalence of underweight was found to be 18.9%, stunting 15.2%, and wasting 11.2%. Age and ethnicity were significantly associated with the prevalence of underweight and stunting. The growth achievement of children below the age of two years were significantly better off than the older children, and Chinese children significantly better off than Malay and Indian children.
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Papers by Heng Leng Chee