Using migrant workers

Throughout the 1990s, based on enhanced economic performance and increasing integration of national economies within south-east Asian countries, intra-regional flows of migrant labour have exceeded inter-regional flows, to the extent that today foreign labour has become a structural part of the national economies in much of Asia. As a result, since the early 1980s, migration between Asian countries has grown steadily from just over one million Asians to more than 6.5 million by mid-1997. In addition, there has been a clear trend towards feminisation of labour migration. Not only are increasing numbers of women participating, but they often exceed the numbers of the their male counterparts. For instance, throughout the 1990s, approximately 60% of workers exported from the Philippines were women, and women made up 65% of the total number (1.9 million) of Indonesian migrant workers.