One of the primary objectives of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), established in 2015, was to boost skilled labor mobility within the region. This insightful book takes stock of the existing trends and patterns of skilled labor migration in the ASEAN. It endeavors to identify the likely winners and losers from the free movement of natural persons within the region through counterfactual policy simulations. Finally, it discusses existing issues and obstacles through case studies, as well as other sectoral examples.

ASEAN (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations) has made slow progress in defining a regional policy for the protection of migrant workers. This book examines the normative structures within the institutions at play at both state and regional level of ASEAN, which influence the making of a migrant workers' protection policy.The author puts forward a novel alternative policy analysis tool – the Two Level State and Regional Analysis – that enables satisfactory explanation for policy-making cases, whereby normative institutional structures are involved and social policies are considered. The author argues that the formulation of a working coherent migrant workers protection policy has not been achieved because of the presence of normative institutional structures with ideas unsupportive to the protection of migrant workers, which results in a slow institutionalisation process. Although the migrant workers in question are their citizens, and migrant sending countries are supposed to have more supportive normative structures for workers protection, the author finds that when examined closesly, institutions in both migrant sending and receiving countries tend to have normative structures that are against workers protection. These arguments drive the analytical questions of the book to inquire about the forms of the normative structures involved and their influence in the relevant institutions. A unique contribution to the study of ASEAN and migration in Southeast Asia, this book will be of interest to academics in the field of Social Policy, Migration Studies and Asian Studies, in particular Southeast Asian Studies.

This publication examines the need to expand social protection coverage of the informal sector to support working age productivity, reduce vulnerability, and improve economic opportunity. Case studies from Bangladesh, the People's Republic of China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand offer suggestions to close social protection gaps and recommend policy solutions to create equitable and inclusive social protection programs for informal workers.

China has an estimated 120?150 million internal migrants from the countryside living in its cities. These people are the engine that has been driving China's high rate of economic growth. However, until recently, little or no attention has been given to the establishment of a social protection regime for migrant workers. This volume examines the key issues involved in establishing social protection for them, including a critical examination of deficiencies in existing arrangements and an in-depth study of proposals that have been offered for extending social security coverage. Featuring contributions from leading academics outside China who have written on the topic as well as experts from leading Chinese academic institutions such as Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Development Research Center in the State Council, this volume provides a comprehensive account from both inside and outside China.

The growing scale of international migration has reshaped the debate on the social rights and social protection available to people outside their countries of origin. This book uses conceptual frameworks, policy analysis and empirical studies of migrants to explore international migrants' needs for and access to social protection across the world.

"This report presents information on levels and trends in international migration, including refugees and asylum seekers for regions and countries of the world, the state of international migration policies of the Member States, and the ratification and adoption status of migration-related legal instruments and normative frameworks"--Title page verso.