Labour Mobility

Agriculture includes all activities done by a farmer,
who is engaged in agriculture or farming which is done on a
farm as a conjunction with such farming operations, including
preparations for market, delivery to storage or to market or to
carriers for transportation to the market. Farmer’s activities
include farming in all of its branches and the cultivation and
tillage of the soil, dairying. These activities depend on the labour
force. Farming activities, especially wetland farming, need huge
supply of labourers. Alappuzha district in Kerala is known as the
“Granary of Kerala” because of the abundance of rice
cultivation in this part of the state. Mechanization is not possible
in the district due to Geographical as well as financial
constraints. So it does not suit to the geographical conditions of
the wetlands of the district. Here famers are forced to depend on
human labourers. So the availability of labourers, their wages,
their attitudes are important in the agricultural activity of the
district. Unfortunately Alappuzha district is facing certain
problems on the basis of labourers. The problems associated with
their availability, mobility, wages, compensations are major
constraints faced by the farmers of the district. The problems
incurred by the labour force are not only affecting the farming
activity but also they are affecting the land use pattern of the
district. They even lead to the increase of the cultivable waste
land of the district.

This report on returnee women migrant workers (RWMWs) draws from insights shared by 1,210 women to understand the influences, conditions, and challenges that characterize women’s migration from and reintegration to Nepal. This is a summarised and edited version of the report ‘Returning Home Challenges and Opportunities for Women Migrant Workers in the Nepali Labour Market’ prepared by a team at the Centre for the Study of Labour and Mobility, Social Science Baha, Kathmandu.

The present study shows that while women largely migrate for economic reasons, they remain unable to improve their economic status upon return to Nepal due to traditional restrictions to their mobility and their disproportional share of household responsibilities. Furthermore, the participation of returnee migrant women workers in Nepal’s labour market is constrained by multiple work burdens created by the gendered division of household labour and care responsibilities.

The findings from this study and other global literature suggest that there are other less visible social and structural factors in the form of dominant discriminatory social norms that are persistent and that underlie the migration of Nepali women. These include the lack of substantive equality for girls during their formative ages, which limits their life chances, access to employment opportunities and ability to meaningfully compete in the labour market in later years. Likewise, experiences of women worldwide reflect the universal mindset that regards domestic work as essentially women’s duty, thereby adding work burden to women who seek options outside the home. Thus, for women and girls who long endure patriarchal discrimination, foreign labour migration comes as an opportunity to make a living without constraints of social norms, including risk to reputation, which is particularly true for single, widowed and divorced women. Thus, migration offers a chance for women to experience individual freedom and achievement as they are exposed to new places, cultures, societies and languages.

The challenges faced by Nepali women are reflective of the experiences of drudgeries and work burdens of working women worldwide. Addressing these challenges requires a stronger coordinated effort globally, among partners, practitioners, academia and governments, to go beyond policy change to enable communities and families to address deep-seated discriminatory social norms that stand in the way of women’s economic empowerment.

Το παρόν άρθρο πραγµατεύεται την αλληλεπίδραση των εργασιακών και φαντασιακών κινητικοτήτων και ακινησιών στις µελέτες της µετανάστευσης. Αναδεικνύει, µέσα από ανθρωπολογική έρευνα, µετασχηµατισµούς αλλά και συνέχειες σχεσιακών σχηµάτων και πολιτισµικών αντιλήψεων που οργανώνουν τις εργασιακές και φαντασιακές κινητικότητες των Αλβανών µεταναστών στην Ελλάδα την περίοδο 1990-2010. Το άρθρο καταλήγει ότι οι Αλβανοί µετανάστες υιοθετούν την εργασιακή και φαντασιακή κινητικότητα αλλά και την ακινησία ως εναλλάξιµες στρατηγικές, αναλόγως το συγκείµενο, για να οργανώσουν την κοινωνική πραγµατικότητά τους στην Ελλάδα.

The opening of the borders after the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union in 2007 created better job and life opportunities abroad for many Bulgarians, but caused a demographic decline in the country. The extensive out-migration over the last 30 years reduced Bulgaria’s population from 8,987,000 in 1989 to 6,981,047 in 2019 and created a profound impact on the country and on its economy. As a consequence, the nation is in a demographic crisis as the most depopulating one in Europe, facing issues such as brain-drain, slowdown of population growth, and reduction of the working-age population. The impact of labor migration and the resulting unfavorable long-term demographic trends lead to a series of negative consequences for family size, family composition, and intergenerational transfers. Alongside the negative consequences for the Bulgarian state and the economy, labor migration also had a positive economic impact. On the one hand, for the migrants themselves due to the opportunities for higher wages in the host countries, for achieving social stability as well as acquiring new professional and social experience. On the other hand, for the Bulgarian state due to the transfer of skills, knowledge and remittances.

Taken together, the various articles that make up this special issue offer a variety of analyses in different social, cultural, material, political, economic, and historical settings from which to understand how discrimination, and segregation are formed in contexts of high mobility and intense labour, with a special focus on processes of racialization, but not excluding others like age and gender. The papers explore how mobility and labour converge to create and perpetuate racial categories, cultural profiling, and forms of exclusion. The contributions include both contemporary and historical studies, and their geographies encompass the arctic, the Middle East, Asia, the Atlantic, Europe and the seas themselves. These include analyses of labour lifestyles in arctic working camps, the racialization of Filipino workers in container ships, or the racialization of Chinese workers in Singapore, the livelihoods of expats between Europe and Dubai and how they cope with different racial categories, as well as an analysis of segregation in Cyprus and Italy, the roles of age differentiation in the future of mobile labour, and a historical perspective on mobile labour in the Atlantic in the 19th century.
The main point is to show how mobility is a factor in amplifying categories of race, as well as gender and age. Mobility does not necessarily mean deleting or alleviating these. Highly mobile lifestyles, particularly in the context of labour mobilities, do not translate into a more liquid, transnational, or hybrid outset. What people do and how people move operate together to perpetuate certain categories and profiles – and, as we discussed, there are even new categories and profiles that are created by a moving lifestyle. This special issue only offers a starting point to consider and tackle these important issues.

Contemporary skilled migration from Fiji to other Pacific Island countries began in the early 1980s and has continued since. There are Fijian citizens who work as domestic help as well as in the hotel industry in Cook Islands, and there are nurses, teachers, doctors, lawyers, pilots, mechanics, electricians and technicians in the Federated States of Micr onesia, Guam, Kiribati, Marshall Islands and Vanuatu. With the coming of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands in 2003, we have seen policemen and women moving to Solomon Islands. What is more, the trend is likely to continue if the Pacific Plan, which envisages greater labour mobility among Pacific Islands Forum countries, becomes reality. This paper provides a detailed discussion of the Fijian migrants in the Marshall Islands and Kiribati to illustrate this new phenomenon of intra-regional skilled migration from Fiji. A profile of the Fijian migrants There were 49 Fijian labour migrants who were interviewed in the Mar...

The phenomenon of international mobility of labour resources is important to the economy of any country in the course of development. In addition to the adverse effects that might cause this phenomenon are not neglected a favourable effect on the area of origin. Thus, the migrants are receiving higher income abroad is an impetus for those remaining in the country

Large-scale outward migration is one of the symptoms of slow progress in development and low expectations of employment and higher living standards at home. Nevertheless, for many developing countries, remittances of migrants working abroad have become an important source of foreign exchange. They are private income and a means to improve the living conditions of many poor households in the receiving countries. While the ultimate policy objective must be to remedy the root causes of the migration through output and ...

This paper examines how opportunity structures for learning, income, and status emerge in a global space shaped by local stakeholders aspiring for strategic positions in international competition. The case-study of Hong Kong suggests that moving up the pyramid of college and university degrees provides opportunities for higher income and reduces turbulence in times of global recessions and layoffs. However, low socio-economic status students are more likely to sustain their upward movement if their learning experiences are enriched with boundary-crossing competencies provided by studies abroad, foreign language training, cross-disciplinary programs, etc. While outbound mobility enhances opportunities for upward mobility, it also challenges the established cultural patterns of learning. This paper discusses the tensions and ties between outbound and upward mobility by analyzing local–global disequilibria in human and institutional agencies of higher education working across social, economic and political boundaries.

Ruspini, Paolo and Hiriş, Liliana and Geiger, Martin and Wersching, Simona and Simina, Ovidiu Laurian and Levine, Samuel Jay and Schulz, Wolfgang P. and Heikkilä, Elli and Pikkarainen, Maria and Feridun, Mete and Ivlevs, Artjoms and Bicanová, Radka and ...

Today, increases of so-called ‘low-skilled’ and temporary labour migrations to Australia—including via dedicated seasonal labour schemes targeted to Pacific Islanders—occur alongside calls for Indigenous people to ‘orbit’ from their remote communities in search of employment opportunities. These trends reflect the prevailing neoliberalism within contemporary Australia, as well as the effects of structural dynamics within the global agriculture and resource extractive industries. However, they are also, often, reflective of the rich cultures and histories of mobility, and the diverse ‘worlding’ practices of those who move, as well as of forces that compel movement. Drawing together historians, anthropologists, sociologists and geographers, the edited collection that this chapter introduced critically explores experiences of labour mobility (and immobility) by Indigenous peoples and Pacific Islanders, including Māori, within Australia. We seek to locate these new expressions of labour mobility within historical patterns of movement, including longer-term migrations, mobilities and diasporic settlements; in doing so, we also seek to comment on the contours and continuities of Australian coloniality in its diverse articulations. Strong commonalities of experience emerge, including the role of labour relations in colonialist efforts to produce and discipline particular kinds of Indigenous and Pacific Islander subjects; the ambivalent role of regulation in both ameliorating and reproducing colonial inequalities; and the complex interplay of coercion and agency as Indigenous and Pacific Islander people variously seek out, resist and negotiate experiences of labour mobility.

This article examines the impact of trade treaties on health professionals' international mobility. It presents a case study of the impact of labour mobility clauses in trade agreements on the Canadian nursing labour market. It provides statistical evidence on the impact of NAFTA's Chapter 16 on the cross-border movement of Canadian nurses in the 1990s. We observed that an increasingly

School-to-work patterns and issues are discussed for seven economies (France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States). The emphasis is placed on differences across countries in the current labor market position of young people and recent trends therein, along with the institutions that regulate youth education, training, and employment. The power of public policies--including labor

Large-scale outward migration is one of the symptoms of slow progress in development and low expectations of employment and higher living standards at home. Nevertheless, for many developing countries, remittances of migrants working abroad have become an important source of foreign exchange. They are private income and a means to improve the living conditions of many poor households in the receiving countries. While the ultimate policy objective must be to remedy the root causes of the migration through output and ...

Organisations today generally have a more diverse workforce, in terms of country of origin, than in the past. As the capital and labour markets continue to globalise, growing numbers of people move across national boundaries to work in different parts of the world. The aim of this chapter is to introduce and explore the conditions and dynamics that characterise this self-initiated expatriation (also known as self-initiated migration). We start by discussing the concepts of migration and self-initiated expatriation. Next, we explore the factors affecting mobility decisions and identify the challenges of moving and working abroad. In the final part of the chapter, we offer two case studies from different national contexts: the United States and South Africa. The case studies focus attention on the perspectives and lived experiences of globally mobile workers themselves and highlight the challenges of cross-border migration and the barriers to integration both within and outside the workplace.

This paper starts from the hypothesis that an effective measurement of the area stability and instability in the labour market cannot be based only on an indicator of labour mobility (number of job to job changes) but requires to take into consideration the actual amount of time worked by each individual (level of saturation of working time). The evidence presented confirms our hypothesis showing that, in the case of Italy, the level of mobility has only slightly changed over the last 15 years, and that the increasing instability in the labour market (in the entrance stage) is largely due to the growing difficulty of working on a continuous basis, as well as to the increasing time required to get a stable job. The evidence presented also shows that being an unstable worker has a negative impact on wages both in the short and in the long run. The exception is represented by those flexible workers, which are able to combine high levels of mobility with a full saturation of working time.

This edited collection of migration papers would like to emphasise the acute need for migration related study and research in Romania. At this time, migration and mobility are studied as minor subjects in Economics, Sociology, Political Sciences and European Studies only (mostly at post-graduate level). We consider that Romanian universities need more ‘migration studies’, while research should cover migration as

Ruspini, Paolo and Hiriş, Liliana and Geiger, Martin and Wersching, Simona and Simina, Ovidiu Laurian and Levine, Samuel Jay and Schulz, Wolfgang P. and Heikkilä, Elli and Pikkarainen, Maria and Feridun, Mete and Ivlevs, Artjoms and Bicanová, Radka and ...

The emphasis in this chapter (and in the next) is on the performance of market processes, particularly their dynamics. While in this chapter the main focus is on the implications for market dynamics of variations in the types of behaviour of market participant and economic impediments to their behaviour, the next chapter concentrates on the influence of diversity in their costs (their economic fitness) for market stability. Given the consequences of the theories developed here, implications are drawn about how the extension of markets (for example, resulting in greater economic globalization) may affect market dynamics.