In the past decade, Australia has developed unprecedented reliance on skilled migrants, a process intensified by a period of sustained economic boom. By 2007, two-thirds were former international students recruited in Australia rather than offshore applicants, exemplifying a transition to what is termed “two-step migration.” How acceptable, however, are such onshore applicants to employers, in a context where Australia's 2006 skilled migration review found less favorable outcomes for former international students than migrants recruited offshore? To address this question, key education enrollment, migration and employment databases were analyzed in-depth. Overall, former international students were found to achieve comparable labor market participation rates to migrants recruited offshore. However, former students qualified in two-year courses and/or in oversubscribed fields performed worse than offshore migrants. Between 2007 and 2010, Australia introduced major policy reforms to improve the outcomes for international students applying under the skilled migration program. In February 2010, the government corrected education sector abuses while significantly changing selection processes. This decade of Australian policy experimentation may be instructive to other countries which have introduced study-migration pathways designed to attract and retain former students as skilled migrants.

This paper presents the analysis of interviews with Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers in Singapore regarding their strategies of resistance in response to exploitation and coercion by employment agencies, employers, the Singaporean public, and kin and family members in their home countries. Many strategies identified in previous studies about domestic workers' resistance/negotiation elsewhere might not be applicable in Singapore because of greater surveillance and stricter regulations there. Various strategies noted in this study are likely to be more subtle and inconspicuous. Although these women are rendered victims by the global economic system, they have developed various strategies to protect themselves. This study also discusses the relative and fluid position of vulnerability among domestic workers of different nationalities.

This article examines how a relatively high level of intangible capital has enabled the relatively rapid integration of Montreal Vietnamese, thus making of them “model” minorities, without forsaking their culture and identity. Three major dimensions of the Vietnamese experience in Montreal are examined: ethnic community life, economic and social integration into mainstream society, and transnational ties. It is shown that these dimensions complement each other, and that each of them contributes in fostering one of the three forms of social capital – bonding, bridging and linking – as defined by Robert Putnam (2000). The article concludes on some theoretical implications concerning the role and limits of human and social capital drawn from the Vietnamese example.

In general, data on international migration in China are limited. The Entry-Exit Administration classifies foreigners in China into short-term migrants, long-term migrants and permanent residents. Emigrants from China include tourists, those visiting relatives, students, workers, permanent residents, Xinyimin (new emigrants or those who left China from 1978 to live permanently abroad), and ChuJing (leaving the border or Mainland Chinese bound for Taiwan, China; Hong Kong (China) and Macau (China). The census does not collect information on international migration. Furthermore, data on unauthorized migration into and from China are unavailable. China needs an agency that would coordinate the collection of data on international migration.

The aim of this paper is to explore how migrant workers from the Lao People's Democratic Republic conceptualized their health-related quality of life while they worked and lived in Thailand. Seventy workers took part in the study. Data collected from participant observation and in-depth interviews were examined using content analysis. The findings showed that nearly all the workers perceived health-related quality of life as a state of general well-being expressed in the vernacular as u suk sabai. Living, social and employment conditions exerted variable effects on their perceptions of health-related quality of life.

This study focuses on overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Taiwan and probes into how their migration experiences shape self construction. Data for the study came from surveys, key informant interviews, Twenty Statement Tests (TST), and observations in field studies conducted in Taiwan in 2003 and 2007. Analysis of self-concept statements on the TST showed that among women OFWs the self became more individualized and less embedded in the social roles in Taiwan than when they were in the Philippines. In contrast, the few male workers in the study registered a slight increase in their social roles. In general, OFWs found little opportunity to become integrated into Taiwanese society. In the face of exclusion in the host society, we argue that OFWs exercised social creativity, reinforcing their national identity as Filipinos and embracing the role as “modern-day heroes” of the Philippines.

This article focuses on the situation of women migrants displaced by the Three Gorges Project (TGP) in China. It examines the participation and types of work undertaken by women migrants in the resettlement process, the strategies of the government and women migrants in coping with risks (especially impoverishment) that migrant families face after physical displacement, and some gender-related issues relevant to planning in the TGP. Data show that women migrants have limited opportunities to participate in the decision-making process of displacement. Following resettlement, women migrants face difficulties in finding employment in the non-agricultural sector while those who remain in the agricultural sector encounter extreme difficulties in attempting to engage in new agricultural practices in their new environments. The study found that a gendered perspective in planning for livelihood reconstruction and skills training is generally inadequate or absent.

This study explores the social identities of Filipino seafarers, an important component of temporary labor migration from the Philippines. Three major questions were examined, namely, their social memberships, the place of national identity vis-à-vis other social identities, and seafarers' perceptions of their Filipino identity. Overall, religion, friends and family were the top three social identities mentioned by all seafarers. Length of work experience abroad was found to be associated with the importance seafarers attached to their group affiliations. The study offers some explanations on why national identity was less salient compared with other social identities.

This study examines the residential patterns of rural-urban migrants in Thailand. The analysis takes advantage of a rich dataset that followed migrants from rural Nang Rong, a district in the Isan region, to the Bangkok metropolitan area and the Eastern Seaboard. Findings document substantial residential clustering: almost half of the migrants interviewed in 2000 and 2001 lived in neighborhoods where 80 percent or more of their neighbors came from Isan. Migrants with less than a secondary education, those working in factory jobs, and those working with other migrants from Isan were more likely to be living in Isan-concentrated neighborhoods, net of other variables.

The development of Queensland's sugar industry in the nineteenth century led to an influx of non-European laborers, such as Melanesians, Cingalese and Javanese. Years later, under the Immigration Restriction Act, 1901, many Asian people were expelled from Australia, but some Javanese remained in Mackay. This paper examines the Javanese settlement pattern during the colonial, “White Australia,” and multicultural periods in terms of race, ethnicity, culture and religion. These accounts were derived largely from interviews with Australia-born second, third and fourth generation Muslims of Javanese origin in Mackay.