Events

This workshop is organized by the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore and the Qualification and Skill in the Migration Process of Foreign Workers in Asia (QuaMaFA) project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany (BMBF).

The meaning of ‘skilled’ or ‘white-collar’ work, that is, work that requires a certain set of expertise and educational credentials, has changed in the last decade. In tandem, so has the meaning attached to ‘skilled migration’, namely, knowledge-intensive work carried out by professionals outside of their home countries. After a peak in global human mobility in the 2010s due to a proliferation of budget airlines and a surge in bilateral and multilateral agreements that cover and ease international labour mobility (Sheller and Urry 2006), the late 2010s brought about unprecedented changes. Digitalization is the most prominent to name, facilitating international business and the communication of globally dispersed teams. Other developments include first the rise, and then the fall, of coding professions, which used to represent a highly-demanded skill that triggered large migration flows from countries where IT skills were trained but which have most recently shifted to become skills at risk of being replaced by artificial intelligence.

Overall, structural shifts rooted in changing migration policies, the ‘tech wreck’ laying off IT personnel around the world, and global events such as the COVID-19 pandemic have contributed to reconfiguring skilled labour mobility. While some skilled workers were suddenly able to work remotely from home (or even anywhere they prefer), others had to remain in areas of rising geopolitical tensions or risk of infection, denied the freedom to move or work from safe spaces (Zhang and Wang 2023). These countervailing developments, added to labour shortages and demographic change resulting from rapid ageing, brought to light which skills are ‘essential’ and in short supply, which can be outsourced to other countries, and which to machines (Horii and Sakurai 2020). These shifts in work styles and labour market demands have raised the question who can be accorded the label ‘skilled workers’ and who can (soon) be denied of it.

In this light, this workshop examines the changing working environment skilled migrants encounter in contemporary Asia. The continent is the largest producer of varied ‘skilled’ professions such as IT and nursing, with intraregional migration flows almost doubling between 1990 and 2020 (IOM 2024). At the same time, Asia is also known for less liberal migration regimes than those in Western countries (Boucher and Gest 2018). Given labour shortages at almost all skill levels in most industrialized Asian economies, the region provides an important context to observe new meanings of ‘skill’, changing attitudes towards skilled immigrants, and resulting reconfigurations of immigration policy. While foregrounding the sphere of work, we acknowledge that even within skilled migrants’ spatial and life trajectories, ‘work’ is not only a means to secure a visa and to earn financial income, but also a way to pursue upward socio-economic mobility, to build a life (and sometimes family) in the host society, and to attain life satisfaction (Yeoh and Huang 2011). However, the extant scholarship has yet to give full attention to the interplay between the redefinition of skill, the changing nature of work skilled migrants encounter, and their perception of and responses to the way this affects their social positioning, life aspirations, and family dynamics. Subjective interpretations of a ‘successful’ migration may neither depend on a career in an occupation or industry that is labelled skilled; nor do migrants necessarily perceive their social positioning in line with that stipulated by visa categories and state policy (Boese et al. 2022).

As such, this workshop examines the intersections between the new structural conditions that shape work and life in contemporary Asia and skilled migrants’ subjectivities. On a conceptual level, it seeks to clarify how changing ways of work and ensuing redefinitions of skills affect skilled migrants’ self-positioning and family strategy in a landscape of both tightening and emerging immigration regimes in Asia. Potential workshop participants are encouraged to submit original research papers that address the following areas of interest, which include but are not limited to:

• How have new working styles and changes in labour market demands recalibrated ‘skill’ categorisations? How do skilled migrants, including digital nomads and remote workers, experience changes and continuity in the way their skills are assessed, and how do they manoeuvre their resultant new positioning – including the impact on their legal status, family life, migration trajectories, and more – on a hierarchy of skills?
• How do new and emerging narratives surrounding digital work and the use of AI influence migrants’ expectations and aspirations of long-term opportunities in the host society, self-actualization, and skill development?
• To what extent do skilled migrants carve out professional careers and migratory trajectories deviating from state-determined ‘skill’ trajectories, as their own qualifications, family roles and life stage no longer fit the (updated) ‘ideal’ path?
• What kind of soft skills, creativity, or psychological capital are valued in the new world of work and facilitate the realization of migratory projects, allowing migrants to perceive themselves as having autonomy and competence over their lives?

WORKSHOP CONVENORS

Dr Helena HOF
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, and University of Zurich

Dr Aimi MURANAKA
University of Duisburg-Essen

Dr Ruth ACHENBACH
Goethe University Frankfurt

Dr Yang WANG
Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

Prof Brenda S.A. YEOH
Asia Research Institute & Department of Geography, National University of Singapore