As global migration patterns become increasingly complex, social scientists face growing pressures to make sense of migrants’ long-term trajectories. Research has shown how people can move to multiple countries throughout their lives, challenging a long-held belief that migration involves only a single origin and destination. Yet, scholars have also been limited to framing multinational trajectories as an individual experience – a result of the resources, aspirations, and circumstances of migrants themselves. Largely missing is the question of how other actors and institutions can shape migrants’ multinational pathways. This project shifts scholarly attention to how different actors move people across multiple borders, channelling migrants toward some places and drawing them away from others. We aim to examine how global competition over migrant skills defines people’s multinational trajectories. Specifically, we seek to determine how governments, recruitment agencies, and employers compete to direct migrants to and from specific destinations, reshaping their trajectories across time. We focus on the case of migrant nurses, a healthcare profession projected to face severe labour shortages in the coming decade (WHO 2023). We also centre our study on the movement of Filipinos, the largest nationality group among migrant nurses. We ask: How have nurse migration trajectories diversified over time amid a growing competition for healthcare labour? How have state institutions, commercial agencies, and employers sought to influence nurses’ migration trajectories? How might nurses alter their migration trajectories in relation to changing state policies, workplace incentives, and recruitment strategies? 

PI & Co-PI(s): Yasmin Ortiga, Brenda S.A. Yeoh FBA, Elaine Lum & Shawn Yong Shian Goh

Host Institution: Singapore Management University
Partner Institutions: National University of Singapore & Singapore Institute of Technology

Funding Agency:  Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 2 (T2EP40125-0019)
Project Duration: 2 February 2026 – 1 February 2029