Experiences Of Migrant Workers Research Articles

Empirical research on decent work and precarious work for semi-skilled and unskilled blue-collar workers: A scoping review

Recognising that many workers worldwide often face poverty and exploitation, the International Labour Organisation aims to promote decent and productive work opportunities for all. We conducted a scoping review to get an overall view of current academic literature on decent work and precarious work for samples of blue-collar workers. The studies included in this review, focused on empirical research conducted from 2006 onwards, that primarily investigated decent work or precarious work among semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers. The review team used a data-charting form and collected information from thirty-five articles. Most recent studies (2020–2023) were related to the experiences and livelihoods of non-traditional blue-collar workers namely platform drivers and informal waste pickers. Before 2020, the most commonly studied theme related to the experiences of migrant workers. The findings shed light on the experiences of these workers, particularly in South Africa and India and provide valuable insight into their work experiences for further discussion.

The role of cross-cultural adaptation in the relationship between leisure constraints, motivation, and travel intention: a case study of Vietnamese migrant workers

ABSTRACT In recent years, the global phenomenon of international labor migration has become a pressing issue. This migration not only contributes significantly to host nations’ economies but also raises complex social and cultural questions, particularly when it comes to the leisure lives and constraints faced by migrant workers. Surprisingly, the experiences of migrant workers from Southeast Asian countries, such as Vietnam, remain understudied and undertheorized in the existing literature. This research aims to fill this gap by exploring the impact of cross-cultural adaptation on the intricate relationship between leisure constraints, travel motivation, and travel intention among Vietnamese migrant workers in Taiwan. A sample of 322 Vietnamese migrant workers in Taiwan was used to test the research framework. The relationships between leisure constraints, travel motivation, cross-cultural adaptation, and travel intention were investigated. Furthermore, the mediating role of cross-cultural adaptation is also identified in this study. By examining migrant workers through cross-cultural adaptation theory, these findings contribute to the body of knowledge in this field. Furthermore, the contribution to practical implications is to increase migrant workers’ travel intention, improve their general well-being, and facilitate their integration into their host countries.

Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study of Nepalese Migrant Worker's Families from Communication Perspective

This research study is conducted to explore the role of intrapersonal communication on human development of international migrant workers' left behind family (IMWLF). It considers these left behind families to have difficult life conditions due to the separation with their family members. It includes the experience of migrant workers' left behind son, daughter and spouses. Study has explored the variation in qualitative experience in this life condition due to their gender identity. Major focus is on human physiological, psychological, emotional, cognitive, intellectual and spiritual development. Hermeneutic phenomenological qualitative study is conducted through an in-depth interview of 4 participants from international migrant workers' left behind families based on interpretive research philosophy in a cross-sectional time frame on inductive approach. Inductive approach is implied to see the individual development within a wider area of human development. Major finding of this study is that family separation caused by migrant working has highly impacted their human development in various spheres as in studied variables such as physiological, psychological, emotional, cognitive, intellectual and spiritual level. Positive intrapersonal communication skills enhancement is explored as needed for intervention for the qualitative human development of these research participants in specific and in general of international migrant workers left behind families in Nepal.

Health and medical experience of migrant workers: qualitative meta-synthesis

BackgroundMigrant workers in Korea are contributing to economic development by resolving labour shortages due to the increase in the ageing population, and they have become necessary and important in the Korean economy. However, long working hours, poor working conditions, and cultural differences can cause migrant workers to experience disadvantages in using health and medical services. Therefore, this study aimed to understand and analyse the health and medical service experience of migrant workers in Korea by reviewing previous studies in order to improve their health and access to medical services.MethodThe qualitative meta-synthesis method suggested by Thomas and Harden was used. The key question for searching the literature is ‘What is the status of the use of health and medical service by migrant workers in Korea and the attributes that affect them?' Five electronic databases (RISS, KCI, KISS, Science ON, and KMbase) were searched for Korean literature published in academic journals until 6 November 2022 using a combination of “migrant worker or foreign worker or foreign labourer or migrant” and “medical or health” in Korean.ResultsA total of nine studies out of 1,006 were included in the review after methodological quality assessment using the Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP). The results of studies were synthesised into three themes and ten sub-themes: ‘Personal factors’ of personal health beliefs and the financial burden of healthcare costs; ‘Cultural factors’ of cultural differences in the lifestyle, cultural differences in the healthcare environment, and traditional medicine in the country; and ‘Socio-institutional factors’ of poor and difficult working environment, insufficient information about medical institutions, policies with a lack of practical applicability, systems of healthcare institutions, and healthcare services usage.ConclusionsThis study identified the experiences of migrant workers in using health and medical care services. The results of this study can be used as a basis for improving the health of migrant workers and access to healthcare services. Based on the results of this study, it is necessary to improve the health management ability of migrant workers by developing a health management platform that can support Korean medical information and provide professional and accurate self-health management information.

The precarious lives of others: studying community, treatment, and precarity in Homebound

Abstract This paper explores themes of precarity, community, and treatment in the novel Homebound (2021) by Puja Changoiwala. The text foregrounds the experiences of migrant workers in India during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 as they walked home during a nationwide lockdown. The paper locates itself within discourses on health, differential treatment, and intersectional vulnerabilities which are compounded by factors including gender and poverty. It particularly highlights the concepts of precariousness and precarity as opening up multiple avenues for exploration of the migrants’ experience within the neoliberal political economy. The paper argues that it is the pre-existing precarities that are systemic, epistemic, and gendered, which aggravate the vulnerability of communities in a medical crisis. Furthermore, it looks at how social and medical treatment of the workers facilitates violence at the hands of those who perceive them as the ill-other – the police forces, the public, the healthcare workers, and the media. It also questions the logic that underlines spaces such as pandemic camps, which become sites of control more than care, and where medical treatment is inhered in socio-political biases and constructs. The paper argues that apprehending these experiences of socioeconomic and gendered precarities through literature can aid in developing a complex and sustained engagement with unequal socio-political systems that perpetuate violence and vulnerability.

La frontera ganadera y sus enclaves íntimos en el Chaco Paraguayo

This article explores an imaginary of the Paraguayan Chaco as a liminal social and geographical region. This liminality is reproduced at multiple levels through transgression against nature, excess infrastructure and hypermasculine work experiences. Ranching enterprises contribute to the liminality of the region by becoming “intimate enclaves,” that is, spaces where intimate and unequal relationships between nature, humans and animals are forged, reproducing different rhythms of domination, violence and exploitation. The article delineates how these dynamics, which contribute to the expansion of the ranching frontier, manifest themselves in processes of deforestation and development of infrastructure, in the experiences of migrant workers, and in intimate relationships with indigenous women.

Critical Illness in Migrant Workers in the Windsor-Essex Region: A Descriptive Analysis.

Despite their essential role in Canadian agriculture, migrant workers face numerous healthcare barriers. There is a knowledge gap regarding the healthcare experiences of migrant workers with critical illness in the Windsor-Essex region. Our objective was to collect information on the experiences of migrant workers experiencing a critical illness at Windsor Regional Hospital (WRH) between 31 December 2011 and 31 December 2021. We conducted a retrospective chart review and interviews with migrant workers. We identified 14 migrant workers who presented to WRH with a critical illness over these 10 years. Despite occasional barriers regarding access to care, the migrant workers received an appropriate standard of care in Canada. Five of the fourteen patients identified were repatriated to their home countries. The migrant worker patients interviewed expressed satisfaction with the care they received in Canada but identified repatriation as a specific concern to receiving continuity of care. The health and financial burden imposed by critical illness on migrant workers and their employers makes critically ill workers vulnerable to medical repatriation as a unique social determinant of health. Considering the critical role of migrant workers in Canada's food security, policy changes should be considered to ensure critically ill workers are able to remain until recovery.

Dimensions of wellbeing and recognitional justice of migrant workers during the COVID-19 lockdown in Kerala, India

The lockdown of March 2020 in India witnessed one of the largest movements of migrants in the country. The state of Kerala was quick and efficient in responding to the challenges posed by the lockdown on its migrant population and in supporting its ‘guest workers’. While many studies have researched the material resources of migrants during the pandemic, such as income and food, few have investigated the subjective measures and emphasised the lived experiences of migrant workers. Drawing on the Wellbeing in Developing Countries (WeD) approach which examines three dimensions of wellbeing, namely, (a) material, (b) relational and (c) subjective wellbeing, this article focuses on the mental health and wellbeing experiences of migrant workers during the first lockdown in Kerala. By deploying these wellbeing dimensions, the study looks at how migrant workers perceived and experienced the various interventions put in place by state and local governments, as well as voluntary initiatives aimed at supporting them. The study elaborates around migrants’ relations of love, care, and trust, and their reasons to remain in Kerala or return home during the lockdown. The study found that a paradigm shift, where ‘migrant workers’ are becoming ‘guest workers’, was at the forefront of the captured narratives. The key findings in this way contribute to the understanding of migrants’ lived experiences, wellbeing, and perceptions of the different lockdown interventions. We argue that an increased attention to subjective factors helps us understand migrant needs at times of crisis through their lived experiences and thereby enhances policy planning for disaster preparedness.

Acts of Unsettling: An Immersive Adaptation of Berger and Mohr’s A Seventh Man

This article examines Michael Pinchbeck and Ollie Smith’s theatrical adaptation of A Seventh Man, the 1975 book by John Berger and photographer Jean Mohr studying the experience of migrant workers in Europe. Pinchbeck and Smith’s 2020 adaptation uses immersive performance strategies in dialogue with a multi-voiced, cross-disciplinary publication that itself aims to produce an immersive or ‘animated’ reader engagement. In this article, Babbage and Pinchbeck present source text and performance as examples of practice-as-research, referencing Nelson’s paradigm that establishes different modes of knowledge and points of connection- and dissension-between them. They discuss the book’s cross-disciplinarity and the attempt to reflect this in a new creative context that is spatiotemporal, embodied, social, visual, verbal and aural. The article’s theoretical context draws on writing by Barthes, Berger, Said and Sontag, applying Barthes’ notion of the studium and the punctum to reflect on the dramaturgical rendering of the source text’s ‘interruptive shocks’. Babbage and Pinchbeck argue that, in book and performance, the juxtaposition of different formal languages elicits an encounter with the material that is productively ‘unsettling’.

Local labour market segmentation and migrant workers’ experiences: The case of the hotel industry in Venice

Using Venice as a case study, this article seeks to analyse the experience of migrant workers in the hotel industry through a theoretical engagement with the local labour market segmentation approach. The global hotel industry relies on large numbers of migrant workers, who are often in their first job in the host context, as a solution to the problem of cyclical staff shortages. Previous studies have found that low barriers to entry into the sector and high staff turnover are the underlying reasons for this relationship. They have also shown that the same characteristics that make the hotel sector attractive to migrant workers also lead them to leave the industry shortly after entering it. However, this article reveals significant stability in the careers of migrants employed in Venetian hotels as well as heterogeneity in their individual experiences. Through identifying and analysing the factors underpinning the trajectories of these workers, the article emphasises the importance of local characteristics of production, consumption, institutional and welfare regulation patterns, workers’ social stratifications and strategies of social reproduction in shaping the relation between migrant workers and the local hotel industry.

Exploring theory-based behavioral interventions promoting COVID-19 prevention and healthcare-seeking for migrant worker men in Singapore: a qualitative study

BackgroundThe first wave of COVID-19 during April to July 2020 in Singapore largely affected the migrant workers living in residential dormitories. A government taskforce working with dormitory operators, employers and non-government agencies came together to deliver behavioral interventions and health care services for migrant worker as dorms were imposed movement restrictions. To fill the research gap in understanding movement restriction experiences of migrant workers, this research seeks to describe dormitory contexts and explore behavior change related to both prevention of transmission as well as healthcare seeking for COVID-19 among male migrant workers.MethodsWith social constructivism as the foundation for this study, 23 telephone interviews were conducted with Bangladeshi and Indian migrant workers. A theory-informed, data-driven conceptual framework, characterized by the “Four Ss”: Sensitization, Surveillance, Self-preservation, and Segregation was first generated and later used to frame second-stage, more in-depth, thematic analyses. An effective multipronged approach was documented, persuading migrant workers in our case-study to improve hygiene and follow some safe distancing measures, and adhere to help-seeking when symptomatic.ResultsRapid collective adaptation was demonstrated; it was propped up by effective harnessing of infrastructure and technology. While technology and digital platforms were central to shaping Sensitization for prevention-related behaviors, interpersonal communication, especially peer-sharing, was key to normalizing and accepting healthcare delivery and norms about healthcare seeking. Interpersonal factors particularly supported successful implementation of case-detection Surveillance, stimulating Self-preserving and acceptance of rules, and was found helpful to those Segregated in recovery facilities. In contrast, encouraging prevention-related behaviors relied more heavily on multiple online-platforms, phone-based e-learning/knowledge testing, e-monitoring of behavior, as well as interpersonal exchanges.ConclusionOverall, the findings showed that the conception of the Four Ss helped inform intervention strategies. Anchoring these towards optimal use of technology and harnessing of interpersonal communication for prevention and promotion of healthcare seeking in the planning of future Infectious Disease outbreaks in closed institutional settings is recommended.

Subverting the “migrant division of labor” through the traditional retail market: the London Latin Village’s struggle against gentrification

ABSTRACT Retail gentrification describes the process by which the retail offer of a neighborhood is reconfigured to cater to a wealthier clientele than previously. This not only affects the ability of poorer urban residents to access essential goods and services but also has disruptive effects on existing communities. In this paper, we analyze the threat of gentrification and its impact on the experiences of migrant workers at the Latin Village, a Traditional Retail Market (TRM) in North London. We make two arguments based on a combination of qualitative research methods (interviews, participant observation, survey and document analysis). First, we find that the market offers a sense of belonging as well as economic opportunities to migrants, predominantly from Latin America, who face discrimination in many other parts of London’s stratified labor market. Second, we argue that regeneration of the Latin Village as originally envisaged would disproportionately affect this migrant community by threatening an important space of social and economic inclusion. The paper concludes by highlighting the importance of the workplace as a mediator of migrants’ experiences of the city, which calls for further attention to instances of workspace displacement engendered by processes of retail gentrification and their consequences for marginalized communities.

Health literacy and health care experiences of migrant workers during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study

BackgroundMigrant workers are among the most vulnerable populations in society. This study explored the health-literacy experiences of migrant workers in South Korea and how the workers’daily lives have been affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.MethodsWe conducted a series of semi-structured individual and focus-group interviews with 23 migrant workers (eight Cambodians, six Nepalese, four Sri Lankans, three Bangladeshis, and two Pakistanis) residing in the Daegu and Busan metropolitan areas of South Korea. All interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. The data were analyzed using content analysis.ResultsMigrant workers had difficulty accessing and using health care services due, in large part, to linguistic barriers and a lack of an adequate support system. Four main themes were identified: difficulty understanding and using medical services, obtaining necessary health and safety information, the impact of COVID-19, and protecting oneself from becoming infected with COVID-19. Most workers depended on information from social networking services (SNS) and co-workers.ConclusionsMigrant workers’ difficulty with health care access was exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings suggest the necessity of enhancing migrant workers' health literacy, along with the use of SNS as a viable pathway for sharing health information and resources.

Migrant Workers in the Coal Mines of India: Precarity, Resilience and the Pandemic

This article analyses the lived experiences of migrant workers in India under different regimes of coal mining and engages with their contemporary precarious labouring conditions and resilience. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork undertaken in the Talcher coalfields of Odisha, I argue that the labouring lives of migrant workers from marginalised communities have been invisiblised in a ‘shadow economy’ of coal extraction through subcontracting and labour recruitment by local contractors working with state-owned coal companies. The process of invisiblisation has taken place at three levels: first, at the workplace which includes recruitment patterns, contracting systems and precarious labouring conditions inflicted by the employer; second, through the exclusion of migrant workers in the land and labour politics of local dispossessed communities for coal mining jobs; and finally, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent lockdowns, observed as ‘invisible’ essential workers under the Essential Services Maintenance Act of 1981.

Infrastructures of migrant precarity: unpacking precarity through the lived experiences of migrant workers in Malaysia

ABSTRACT Migrant labour has increasingly become key to the functioning of many economies including in Asia. While existing studies have generated rich understandings of precarity, there remains a paucity of studies that shed new light on how migration infrastructures shape the production of multidimensional forms of precarity in the global South. Drawing on a case study of Nepali migrant workers engaged in the manufacturing and service sectors in Malaysia, this article examines migrant workers’ precarious experiences and the role of regulatory, commercial, workplace and socio-economic infrastructures in shaping migrant experiences. It unpacks multidimensional categories of migrant precarity transcending oft-discussed economic forms of precarity, which provide a heuristic tool for researchers to reveal the underlying precarity-generating specific political, social, and economic processes. The article argues that migrant precarity results from the complex interplay between workplace and regulatory infrastructures in receiving country, which is worsened by the workings of commercial and socio-economic infrastructures in sending country. The article has demonstrated how migration infrastructures established by the regulatory and commercial actors purportedly for facilitating migration and benefiting migrant workers have instead produced and exacerbated migrant precarity.

The Livelihood of Chinese Migrants in Timor-Leste

This article aims to describe, in depth, the experiences of migrant workers from China in maintaining their livelihoods in Timor-Leste through entrepreneurial activities before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, this study discusses sustainable livelihoods with the knowledge of migration, adaptation, and entrepreneurship in Timor-Leste. To fulfill these aims, a qualitative methodology with a phenomenological approach was adopted by interviewing eight Chinese migrants who run businesses in Timor-Leste. Furthermore, the framework for the concept of sustainable livelihoods of the Department for International Development (DFID) was adapted to explain, in depth, the phenomena. The finding reveals that economic reasons encourage and attract Chinese migrant workers and entrepreneurs to Timor-Leste. The adaptation process of migrants in Timor-Leste relies on social capital to synergize with local communities in terms of culture, further affecting the comfort and security of entrepreneurship. From the perspective of sustainable livelihoods, migrant workers take advantage of human capital in the process of accumulation of financial capital to enhance their business activities. Meanwhile, migrant entrepreneurship expands their financial capital and human capital into social capital, physical capital, and natural capital. The findings also explain that the mobility and access to financial capital of Chinese migrants are supported through institutional structures, entrepreneurship activities, and policies. Furthermore, to ensure livelihood sustainability and business, Chinese migrants in Timor-Leste can carry out business intensification, extensification, diversification, and transformation strategies.

What do we know about the experiences of migrant care workers in Australia? A scoping study

AbstractMigrant workers comprise a significant and growing segment of Australia's non‐professional frontline care workforce. In this article, we offer a scoping study of existing research to investigate what is known about the experiences of migrant workers employed in non‐professional care occupations in Australia. Through a systematic approach, which includes six discrete stages (Arksey and O‘Malley, 2005), we find a growing and substantial literature on migrants working in non‐professional care occupations in Australia. However, we also find that only a small number of studies are concerned with the experiences of migrant workers themselves. This article thematically maps out existing knowledge about these workers—including pathways in and out of paid care work, (under)utilisation of skills, cultural meanings attached to paid care work, experiences at work such as racism and language barriers, and finally how care work is situated in relation to workers’ private lives. We conclude by identifying major gaps in the literature and outlining important avenues for future research.

(Not That) Essential: A Scoping Review of Migrant Workers' Access to Health Services and Social Protection during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.

Migrant workers have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. To examine their access to health services and social protection during the pandemic, we conducted an exploratory scoping review on experiences of migrant workers in three countries with comparable immigration, health, and welfare policies: Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. After screening 961 peer-reviewed and grey literature sources, five studies were included. Using immigration status as a lens, we found that despite more inclusive policies in response to the pandemic, temporary migrant workers, especially migrant farm workers and international students, remained excluded from health services and social protection. Findings demonstrate that exploitative employment practices, precarity, and racism contribute to the continued exclusion of temporary migrant workers. The interplay between these factors, with structural racism at its core, reflect the colonial histories of these countries and their largely neoliberal approaches to immigration. To address this inequity, proactive action that recognizes and targets these structural determinants at play is essential.

Unpacking Super-Exploitation in the 21st Century: The Struggles of Haitian Workers in Brazil

Emerging patterns of south–south migration and rapid economic growth in developing countries have highlighted the need for new conceptual contributions accounting for the experiences of migrant workers in the Global South. The concept of super-exploitation has been among those contributions with reference to appalling working conditions and the dependence of developing countries on the export of commodities. However, this article argues that the understanding of contemporary forms of super-exploitation experienced by migrant workers remains underdeveloped. Drawing upon 42 semi-structured interviews with Haitian workers in Brazil, this study makes an innovative contribution to the conceptualisation of super-exploitation in the 21st century, particularly from the perspective of social reproduction theory. This article argues that super-exploitation can be defined more accurately as a combination of economic and non-economic forces that entangle productive–reproductive–exploitative relationships, thereby shaping the dependence of workers on wages below the value necessary for their social reproduction.

Trafficking borders

This article offers an empirically informed conceptualisation of trafficking borders as spaces of restriction and negotiation, contingently produced, encountered, and escaped along the mobility routes of the targets of trafficking discourse. The concept of trafficking borders advances critical literature that considers anti-trafficking measures a vehicle of state-authorised bordering practices by demonstrating social and political spaces where the trafficking discourse coalesces several discourses, institutions, and practices as borders. The article draws on participatory action research conducted in Nepal to demonstrate the presence of borders in spaces such as households, communities, government offices, Indo-Nepal state borders, emigration detention and deportation centres, and airports. These spaces contribute to the critical understanding of locations where anti-trafficking measures curtail the rights, mobility, and choices of prospective migrant workers. Prioritising research participants’ experiences of encounters with trafficking borders, the article underscores that borders are the central experience of migrant workers which they must escape to actualise their labour migration projects. The conceptualisation further attempts to position the emigration regime as an important site of theorisation and activism and demands a thorough consideration of the diverse struggles of the labour migrants before they arrive at their labour relations in the immigration regime.