CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS: DAY 2, Green College

Session 4: Transpacific Migration Studies I (930am-1045am)
Title: Korea as a Node of Pacific Migrations
Discussant: Prof. Jennifer Chun, UBC Sociology

Negotiating National and Ethnic Identities of Korean Chinese Workers in South Korea
Sung Sook Lim / 林　聖淑, Anthropology, University of British Columbia

ABSTRACT
Korean Chinese, descendents of Koreans who mainly migrated to Northeast China during the Japanese colonial period (1910-45) and the Korean War (1950-53), have been working and residing in South Korea since 1992, when a diplomatic relationship was established between China and South Korea. The political and economical changes in China, such as China’s new economical reforms, post Cold War political easiness in Northeast Aisa, and global capitalism, have had a significant impact on the Korean Chinese community in China. Such rapid changes have caused a number of them to leave their ‘home’ (China) and seek work in their ‘homeland’ (South Korea). It is against this economic background that the Korean Chinese enter South Korea as labors and are treated as ‘poorly paid undocumented (illegal) workers’ even though they regard themselves as being the same as other Koreans in their homeland. Consequently, they came to be recognized as a new ethnic minority group in South Korea. In 2002, their population was estimated at roughly 100,000, comprising mostly “unskilled” and undocumented workers.
The lives of Korean Chinese transmigrate labors are significantly shaped by their particular situations as Korean ethnic members and Chinese citizens. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between April 2003 and March 2004 in Ansan city, one of the largest industrial areas in South Korea, I will present how Korean Chinese workers negotiate their ethnicity and nationality in everyday life as living “undocumented workers” in their so called “homeland”. I consider the everyday lives of the Korean Chinese as important socio-economical contexts in which their ethnic identities are played out, uncovering and examining each aspect of the dynamic lives in South Korea.

I will present that Korean Chinese workers reproduce their ethnic identities in a variety of ways, such as by interacting with each other, by reinterpreting their colonial and modern history, and by manipulating symbols and symbolic actions. In doing so, they negotiate the ethnic boundaries between themselves and others, boundaries that exist even internally, resulting in a sense of detachment from China. In order to adapt to these circumstances, they re-establish their ethnic identities by producing, crossing, and underemphasizing these boundaries.
Moreover, depending on their social and personal situation, they represent differently who they are and what their ‘homeland’ means to them. Not only do they use their Korean ethnicity for practical advantages in living in South Korea, they are also sentimentally attached to it. The ways in which they rethink and re-establish their ethnicity shows that ethnic identities are not static, but are fluid, dynamic, and situational.

KEYWORDS : ethnicity, nationality, identity, migrant labor, Korean Chinese, and homeland

Hui-Jung Kim, Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Marriage Migration and Changing Gender-Nation Relations in South Korea

ABSTRACT
Female marriage migration from less developed to relatively more developed parts of Asia is becoming more prevalent. Building upon the feminist insights that women are biological reproducers of the nation as well as instruments of national development (Puri 2005; Yuval-Davis, 1997; Yuval-Davis et al 1998), this paper examines the cause and consequences of marriage migration in Asia through a lens of gender, nation, and state relations.
Empirically, this paper focuses on the roles of state in formulating the relationships between gender and nation in contemporary South Korea. From the late 1960s until recently, Korean women participated in the national development process as cheap docile laborers in the export-oriented, labor-intensive sectors such as the garment industry (Bauer 2001). To facilitate the women’s participation in the state-initiated economic development project, the Korean state had encouraged rural women to migrate to cities and women in general to have fewer children, initially to limit the number of children to three in 1960s, to two in 1970s, and finally to only one in 1980s.
This national development project through controlling of women’s roles was successful but resulted in two unintended consequences, which influenced the inflow of certain types of immigrants in recent years. First, the export-oriented economic development facilitated rural-urban migration, creating detrimental impact on the economic and living conditions of the rural areas. This has caused rural bachelors serious problems in finding spouses and resulted in international migration of Southeast Asian women to Korea as “foreign wives” (Ablemann and Kim 2005; Freeman 2005). Second, Korean women’s fertility rate is now one of the lowest among OECD countries (Lee and Park 2003). Facing below-replacement level fertility rate, the Korean state shifted its family planning policies from fertility discouragement to fertility encouragement in the 1990s.

Just as the earlier antinatalist policies were nationalistic (having less children can contribute to the rapid national development), the current pronatalist policies are also nationalistic (to sustain national growth, Korean women should produce more children). Women are encouraged to bear fewer/more children for the Korean nation. What is different between the earlier antinatialist and the present pronatalist approaches is the addition of an “ethnic” dimension due to the increasing number of foreign wives. Women are not only biological but also cultural reproducers of the nation. Thus, to reproduce “Korean” children, the present pronatalist policies not only include conventional measures such as tax incentives and child allowances but also, explicit assimilation policies to assist foreign wives to produce and rare “Korean” children.
The Korean case highlights the role of state in regulating particular forms of migration. That is, the Korean state’s gendered economic development policies induced, if not intentionally, the ‘need’ for spousal migrants (Robinson 2007). This gendered inflow of migrants, in turn, led the Korean state to merge assimilation policies into family planning policies.

KEYWORDS: Marriage migration, Gender, Nation, Population policies, Feminism, South Korea

A Comparative study of Immigration Policies in Japan and Korea: From a Perspective of Historical Institutionalism
Byoungha Lee, Political Science, Rutgers University

ABSTRACT
This paper will examine the variance of immigration policies between Japan and Korea. As latecomers to immigration, both countries have some similarity in formulating immigration policies. Two countries have faced a structurally embedded demand for foreign labor such as aging population and low birth-rate, and labor shortage in dirty, dangerous, and difficult sectors. Japan and Korea had shared almost the same policies against the inflow of foreign workers until 2004. Japan claims that unskilled foreign workers are officially not allowed, while the government utilizes the trainee programs and imports ethnic Japanese from Latin America as side-door mechanisms. In 1991 following the Japanese model, Korea launched the similar program. However, Korea adopted a new system in 2004, and it acted to allow migrant workers to work legally with a status of worker, and to prevent human rights violation. The debut of the new program signals Korea switched the position from side-door mechanism to front-door one. This research tries to figure out the puzzle why Japan is still maintaining the restrictive policies to import the foreign workers, yet Korea is moving toward more open policy even though Korea began with a carbon copy of the Japanese policy.

To explain the puzzle, I will focus on institutional arrangements developed throughout history. Within the literature of comparative migration studies, many scholars take group interests and international human rights norms as main analytical tools. However, I will argue that the two approaches ignore how the politics of immigration policies are mediated by institutional ordering. Interest-based approach regards state as a passive, monolithic umpire, thus misses degree of state autonomy, intra-governmental competition, and role of political coalition between bureaucrats and social actors. Norm-based approach also failed to reveal the different impacts of international norms on domestic policies because it does not consider domestic institutional arrangement such as dynamic interactions among states, NGOs, and international norms. Thus, I will try to explain the variance of immigration policies between Japan and Korea focusing on how politics of immigration in two countries have been conditioned by distinct state-society relations from a perspective of historical institutionalism.

KEYWORDS: foreign workers, foreign labor policy, Korea-migration, Japan-migration, state-society relation, civil activism


Effect of Social Capital on Migrant Workers: the Case of Korea
Jeaah Jung, Sociology, University of Oxford

ABSTRACT
This paper tries to answer why so many migrant workers in Korea choose to end up utilizing their own ethnic ties rather than receiving benefits from institutionalized system that support labor market i.e. social insurance and housing provision. A country’s labor market policy governs foreign workers eligibility to benefits regardless of their intention to work or living needs. Korea’s labor policy which provides insufficient coverage of insurance scheme drove out foreign workers from government supervised legal status. Moreover, migrant workers fallout from legal status was accelerated by higher wages in illegal employment due to policy measure to support small to medium sized firms which suffered from employee shortage, which is legalized industrial trainee program; low wages and unsafe working environment.

KEYWORDS: Social capital, ethnic capital, ethnicity, migrant workers, labor market, Korea

Session 5: Transpacific Migration Studies II (1045am-1200nn)
Title: Comparative Pacific Migrations Across Global Regions
Discussant: Prof. Henry Yu, UBC History

Tracing the Chinese Diaspora in North America, Australasia, Latin America and Europe
Judy Maxwell, History, Australian National University

ABSTRACT
Back in the early 1800s, China’s deteriorating political and economic conditions compelled hundreds of thousands of men to leave their birthplace of south China for better prospects elsewhere, and they dispersed worldwide. The history of the Chinese in North America has been very well documented, but only recently has the history of the Chinese in other continents been explored. It is fascinating that many of these migratory experiences around the world are strikingly parallel: gold rushes, railroad building, coolie labour, work in agriculture, merchant establishments, and so on. Common experiences of cultural adjustment, sacrifice, survival and identity are explored in this paper.

In Latin America, for example, few Mexicans have any knowledge of this history, including many Chinese descendants. And although the history of Northern Mexico has been well-documented – largely because of its shared border with the U.S. – there has been little interest in investigating and recording the valuable histories of the Chinese in southern Mexico. Much of this history has been expunged, conveniently ignored and forgotten. However, now that China is an important player in the global economy and politics, there is precedence for Mexico to recover this missing history in order to forge a beneficial alliance with China. What could have a greater influence on a country’s connection to China than to reclaim its Chinese history and complete its national narrative?

This is the case worldwide: the forgotten and ‘irrelevant’ existence of Chinese in many of these nation-states has not been important, until now. It is valuable to uncover and compare the histories of these countries, then contextualize them with the larger issue of Chinese immigration and exclusion worldwide.

KEYWORDS: immigration, borders, discrimination, ethnicity, identity, nation-state and community formation, multiculturalism.

Transnational Feminism from Living Forced Migration, Marginalization, and Social Transformation: Perspectives of Filipino Women Activists in Three Continents
Marilou Carrillo, Women’s and Gender Studies, University of British Columbia

ABSTRACT
Filipino women’s forced migration from the Philippines, and marginalization in host countries, are changing the experience and understanding of transnational communities and women’s activism. Of the 3,000 estimated Overseas Foreign Workers (OFWs) leaving daily, 60-70% are women, resulting in the feminization of migration. The “women’s sector” in the Philippines extends to include women living and working in more than 190 countries. The boundaries of what is a Filipino “community” are shifting and widening. For those living abroad, actions to change their situations are linked to those of the Philippines.

Women from the Philippines, the Netherlands, and Canada were interviewed to examine the impact of forced migration, ensuing massive displacement, and ongoing marginalization on women’s social and political identity and activism. Pushed to leave by poverty and pulled by industrialized countries’ need for cheap labour, they share the impact of globalization on their daily lives. Being the major “export” of the Philippine government’s Labour Export Policy (LEP), immigration policies in Canada have made Filipinos the fourth largest immigrant group. Whether living “at home” or abroad, actions for social transformation have become necessary and linked globally. Thus, Filipino women activists contribute to the (re-) conceptualization of transnationalism, particularly transnational feminism for social transformation.

Most Filipino migrant workers come to Canada through the Live-In Caregiver Program (LCP). There is an increased number of youth and men sponsored by the women through the LCP. Thus we see an increase of Filipinos in our cities in Canada. An understanding of this history of migration can assist us in analyzing and changing gender, race, and class policies and practices that marginalize Filipino migrants/immigrants, particularly women domestic workers. This discussion assists in analyzing policy implications and proposing actions that can empower this marginalized community to actively participate in a multicultural Canada. They can then bring about change in what they consider unjust policies and practices by the State towards a community becoming more and more an integral part of Canadian society. The Filipino community can continue to be marginalized, or begin to assert participation, depending on how we in Canada engage in analyzing these policies that affect both “mainstream” and “marginalized” sectors of Canadian society. From these women’s perspectives, the liberation of Filipino women contributes or ultimately leads to the liberation of diverse women and men in Canada.

KEYWORDS: social transformation,
feminist praxis and national liberation, gender and nation, transitional feminism, feminization of migration and public policy.

Mainland-to-Hong Kong Migration and Hong Kong Identity
Kenneth Ho, Asian Studies, The University of Hong Kong

ABSTRACT
To Canadians, Hong Kong is well-known as a source of immigration. However, Hong Kong is also a destination for immigration, perhaps more so than Canada – while Canada’s foreign-born population constitutes approximately 1/5 of its total population, Hong Kong’s mainland China-born population alone forms approximately 1/3 of its total population. Though Hong Kong has owed its rapid economic growth to immigration from mainland China for more than 160 years, immigration will prove ever more vital to Hong Kong’s economic and social stability now that Hong Kong is an ageing society with the world’s lowest birthrate and sixth highest life expectancy. In order to maintain its position as a leading financial, banking, and trading centre and an aviation and shipping hub, Hong Kong especially needs a steady supply of well-trained, highly-educated workers. As it happens, the pool of qualified workers in mainland China has been growing due to educational reforms in the past decade and the rapid growth and diversification of China’s economy in the past three decades. Though a number of highly-qualified workers have been settling in Hong Kong in recent years, some of them recruited through government-led initiatives such as the “Quality Migrants Scheme”, Hong Kong is failing to attract a sufficient number of immigrants. Because the most highly-qualified, most sought-after workers are also the most highly-mobile, and because the world’s most developed economies are also recruiting the same kind of workers, Hong Kong will have to identify and address the obstacles to attracting and retaining this valuable human capital. The frosty reception that mainland Chinese people face in Hong Kong is one such obstacle.

This study will examine how the attitudes of local or ‘localised’ Hong Kong people towards immigrants (or potential immigrants) from mainland China affects the immigration of the highly-qualified immigrants so desired by Hong Kong policy planners. The distinct Hong Kong identity that developed from the 1970’s to the 1990’s has caused Hong Kong people to distinguish themselves from mainland Chinese people, and despite strong ethnic, cultural, kinship, and linguistic ties between Hong Kong people and their mainland Chinese counterparts, deeply entrenched stereotypes and prejudicial views endure. This researcher has conducted preliminary investigations on the experiences of postgraduate students from mainland China already studying at universities in Hong Kong.

KEYWORDS: Hong Kong, Mainland China, immigration, discrimination, identity, ageing population

Session 6: Transpacific Migration Studies III (200pm-315pm)
Title: Class, Gender and Labor Migrations in Southeast Asia
Discussant: Prof. Jim Glassman, UBC Geography


Multiple identities in a Transnational Workplace:
The case of Singapore’s Financial Sector
Junjia Ye, Geography, University of British Columbia

ABSTRACT
The flow of diverse peoples into the global workplace is embedded with particular notions of the “ideal” cosmopolitan worker – notions that serve to reproduce inequalities in workplace access. This paper uses the example of Singapore’s financial sector to expound on the issues of access to the professional classes in financial work. I argue that the performance of a particular cosmopolitan identity is crucial for accessing the professional financial classes both through institutional and daily, mundane processes. I investigate how certain characteristics of gender, ethnicity and race limit entry into this class of globally-connected and well-paid individuals. Referring to Bourdieu, I conceptualize “class” as an on-going symbolic struggle sustained by attributing bodies in the workplace with difference. In the process of creating the “ideal” workers for the financial sector, the notion of “cosmopolitanism” is used as a powerful filter that limits access to certain performative kinds of work.

KEYWORDS: Singapore, cosmopolitanism, class, global workplace, financial sector

“Phua Farang” (Foreign Husband) Phenomenon: Transnational Marriages and the Transformation of Rural Life in Thailand’s Northeastern Villages
Sirijit Sunanta, Women’s and Gender Studies, University of British Columbia

ABSTRACT
In 2003-2004, Thailand’s National Economic and Development Board (NESDB) conducted a survey in Thailand’s Northeastern Provinces, revealing that as many as 15,000 women are married to foreign men, mainly from Western European countries and the U.S. After migrating to their husbands’ countries, the women send remittances of approximately 1,464 million baht (US$ 40,000,000) a year in total to their families in Thailand, and spend a further 77,200 baht (US$ 2,100) per month with their husbands during their yearly visit in Thailand. In the most deprived region of Thailand, marriages to foreign men and access to foreign currencies enhance the economic status of Northeastern Thai women and their natal families. This paper seeks to explore the social and cultural explanation of the phenomenon at the village or the community level and examine the transformation that takes place in villages as a result of cross-cultural marriages. It addresses the question of how women’s out migration and transnational flows of money, objects, and ideas resulting from transnational marriages disrupt, transform, and/or reinforce established gender relations, social stratifications, and family and kinship patterns.

I utilize the “transnationalism” framework in analyzing the rising transnational marriage phenomenon in two rural farming villages in Northeastern Thailand. Transnationalism studies and its emphasis on transmigrants tend to overlook those who stay behind. While those who migrate are exposed to transnational experiences that change their lives, those who stay behind also undergo a complex transformation. Unlike most studies on cross-border marriages that focus on transnational married couples, their motivations, and the women’s conditions in a receiving country, this study pays particular attention to the effects on the sending community.

The paper is a result of a village-based ethnographic study in which I spent 6 months in Ban Karawek and Ban Sri Udon (pseudonyms) villages in Udonthani province, from October 2006 to March 2007. Ban Karawek and Ban Sri Udon are neighboring villages that are approximately 3 kilometers away from each other. Approximately 70 women in Ban Karawek and 30 women in Ban Sri Udon are married to foreign husbands. The data for the study are from my participant observation, casual conversations with members of the villages, and semi-structured interviews with six groups of people: (1) 10 prominent community members such as the District Chief, village heads, a senior Buddhist monk, a school principal, a spiritual leader, and elderly people; (2) 10 members of the families of women who have married foreign husbands; (3) 10 village women who are married to foreign men; (4) 10 foreign husbands; (5) 5 to 10 local males; (6) 5 to 10 local females.
Primary findings show that cross-border marriages between village women and foreign men generate new patterns of migration and family arrangements. The phenomenon is grounded on existing gender ideologies related to family responsibility and obligations, yet at the same time this transnational activity causes potential changes in local marriage patterns and marital dynamics. Transnational marriages spur the possibility of “global mobility” physically, socially, and economically among people who are in disadvantageous social positions.

KEYWORDS: transnational marriage, Thai women, transnationalism, gender relations, Thailand, rural community


How do Skill formation regimes influence occupational destination of Filipino contract workers?
Seok Hyeon Choi, Social Policy, University of Oxford

ABSTRACT
The purpose of this paper is to examine in which skill formation regime affect migrant workers’ occupational mobility. Much of fresh attention has been drawn on one nation’s institution configuration and skill formation’s relationships recently since the emergence of Varieties of Capitalism School. Especially, its interests on complementary relationships between skill formation and social protection provide us with meaningful implications on the generation of labor market inequalities in various social groups within each different skill formation regime.
With that in mind, this paper focuses on occupational attainment disparities among Filipino contract workers in different skill formation regime. First made adjustment according to Varieties of Capitalism typology of skill formation regime based on social protection level then classified 22 OECD member countries into five categories. Lowest social protection to highest level of protection has been regrouped into general skill regime to specific skill regime. Once typing is complete, occupational attainment of Filipino contract workers, one of world’s representatives of short term migrant group that show discrepancies within the five category groups has been statistically analyzed.

The result of the analysis shows that regardless of the target group general tendency of downward mobility has been detected. Further, it has been found out that general skill regime had its migrant workers overall trend of downward occupational attainments evenly in all sectors whereas the closer a country moves toward specific regime showed dissimilar mobility between sectors. This implies that skill formation regime determines recognition of migrant workers’ skill and subsequently affects occupational mobility. This study based on the result confirmed that Varieties of Capitalism, which has been far too relatively neglected school of thoughts, can provide an analytic framework in the field of migrant study that migrant workers integration to labor market.

KEYWORDS:


Session 7: Transpacific Migration Studies IV (330-445pm)
Philippine Imagine-Nations: Filipina/o Global Migrations and the Media
Discussant: Prof. Nora Angeles, UBC Community and Regional Planning and Women’s Studies

Pinoy Postings: Young Filipino Professionals Blog Posts in Singapore
Jason Cabanes, Communication, Ateneo de Manila University

ABSTRACT
Perhaps because of the diaspora’s experience of being “both here and
elsewhere” (Clifford, 1992) or even “here, there, and everywhere” (Ollier, 2005), their identities are often marked by ambivalence. Indeed, those of them who attempt to make sense of their cultural identity find themselves having to negotiate and re-negotiate with their roots, i.e., the multiple images of their ever-changing homeland (Ignacio, 2005), and their routes, i.e., the constantly evolving material conditions of their host country (Kennedy & Roudometof, 2002). Driven by my own situation of being in constant contact with my migrant parents and diasporic academic friends and colleagues—all of whom are part of the estimated eight million Filipinos living outside the country—I wanted to unpack how these processes unfolded in the online cultural identity re-presentations of the Filipino diaspora. In this paper then, I appropriated (a) the theory of mediation (Madianou, 2005), (b) virtual ethnography (Hine, 2001; Ignacio, 2005), and (c) the everyday life approach (Edensor, 2002) to see how young Filipino professionals in Singapore negotiated with the enabling/disabling traits of blogs as regards their performances of patriotic pride and cosmopolitanism as strategies to re-present their cultural identity.

KEYWORDS: diaspora, cultural identity, mediation, virtual ethnography, everyday life approach, blog.

Being Filipino-Indian: Diasporic Ethnic Identities, Class and the Media
Jozon Lorenzana, Communication, Ateneo de Manila University

ABSTRACT
Studies on diaspora and migration tend to focus on migrant populations from ‘developing’ countries in ‘developed’ societies (e.g., Australia, Canada, UK, US), where race and ethnicity are the usual tropes of identity and inquiry. This paper shifts attention to diasporas in developing/non-Western societies like the Philippines. What axes of difference operate in such context? To address this question, I examine how young people of the Indian diaspora in Manila describe and position their identities in autobiographical narratives and through talk about their experiences with local, global and transnational media. It draws on studies (e.g., Gillespie, 1995) that conceptualise diasporic identities as complex and a positioning in context (Hall, 1996), and media as a symbolic space where meanings of nation, ethnicity and belonging are contested and negotiated (Madianou, 2005). Data were gathered using depth interviews with a purposive sample of second generation Punjabis, Sindhis and Filipinos with one Indian parent and content analysis of their personal web pages. Initial findings suggest that, among participants, class constitutes meanings of ethnic and national belonging. Participants from the different ethnic groups position themselves based on class distinctions that tend to conflate ethnicity with class categories. Talk about representations of Indians and India in news and Filipino entertainment media reveal attitudes towards racial differences in Philippine society. Participants, regardless of ethnic affiliation, use the discourse of national pride (India as an emerging economic power) and cultural superiority (Indians as rich in cultural heritage) to contest such representations. This study extends our understanding of how Indian diasporas construct and negotiate their identities in a non-Western context.

KEYWORDS: Indian diaspora, ethnic identities, autobiographical narratives, media representations, class, post-colonial Philippines

Watching the Nation, Singing the Nation: How Filipino Migrants in London Construct Their Identity in the Media Rituals of News Reception and Karaoke
Jonathan Corpus Ong, Sociology, University of Cambridge

ABSTRACT
This study explores the processes of identity construction of London-based Filipinos within and across the media rituals of news reception and karaoke. While news reception studies among diasporic audiences have been popular (e.g., Madianou 2005; Matar 2005), few research have been made on the use of karaoke, and fewer still examine both practices side-by-side. While news reception has been recognized as a site of boundary-making, of inclusion and exclusion, across national imaginaries, I argue in this research that the seemingly innocent social practice of singing involves a similar negotiation of (imagined) national boundaries. As national identities are constantly flagged in daily life (Billig 1995), I examine here how Filipino audiences negotiate their multiple attachments in both rituals. From participant observation and qualitative interviews, I discover that news reception generally enables both banal nationalism and banal transnationalism, while karaoke functions more as a homeland-directed “high holiday.” Analyzing how audiences relate to both media in terms of their technology, content, and context, I also argue that individuals are enabled and disabled to weave in and out of self-presentations of Filipino-ness, British-ness, and cosmopolitanism according to particular situations. Crucially, this project highlights how media rituals do not simply facilitate social cohesion but also serve as contexts where contradictory social scripts converge and collide in the third space of diaspora.

KEYWORDS: Filipino diaspora, UK, identity, media and everyday life, news, karaoke.


Mark Lawrence Santiago, Geography, University of British Columbia
Who Cares? Global Nursing Shortage and the Politico-Cultural Economy of Philippine Nurse Migrations

In this presentation, I attempt to briefly describe the history, culture and political economy of the Philippines through the lens of global migration. Migration has defined this country of 7,101+ islands, 170+ languages, and almost 90 million people, 10 million of whom are spread across the globe as workers. This phenomenon led one sociologist to call Filipino/as to be the "servants of globalization."

My talk focuses on just one flow of migration from the Philippines: healthcare workers, particularly nurses. This flow is multidirectional, but the main destinations remain to be "Western countries" such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada followed by "Western Asian countries" (Middle East) such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. So far, my research has looked into the impacts of healthcare worker migration to Philippine "development," especially on its public education and healthcare sectors. However, it has become clear to me that the shortage of healthcare workers is not
only a problem in "developing" countries but also a crisis that "developed" countries such as Canada face. The shortage of healthcare workers is therefore a global phenomenon that cannot be easily solved and quickly sorted out by looking at migration in terms of "brain drain" or in this case, "care drain." In my view, this leads us to serious questions of global ethics respecting the individual agency of migrants' decisions to move while seriously considering the universality of the healthcare crisis.

KEYWORDS: Philippines, global migration, health, development, nursing, migration ethics