Canadian Journal of Sociology Online March-April 2006
Nana Oishi provides a comprehensive analysis of labour migration in Asia. Examining legal female labour migration patterns from such countries as the Philippines, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka to such countries as Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, and the oil-rich Gulf States, Oishi questions conventional economic theories of migration that link migration to "push" factors in the source country. She is equally critical of structuralist theories that examine patterns of labour migration in relation to the country's position in the international division of labour. Oishi also criticizes the "household strategies" approach to international migration for its failure to see household members as independent decision-makers in pursuit of their own individual interests. Using an integrative approach, Oishi claims to advance an explanation of female labour migration that examines the following four levels: suprastate (global), state emigration and immigration policies, meso-society (social norms), and micro-individual. The study introduced the concept of "social legitimacy" which Oishi defines as a set of social norms on women's wage employment and geographical mobility that establish a social environment conducive to international migration. While I was somewhat disappointed with her treatment of globalization and its impact on international migration, she provides a thorough examination of state emigration and immigration policies, cultural norms that foster international migration in some cases and prevent it in other cases, and women's autonomous decisions to migrate.
Oishi examines variations in state policies among destination countries by focusing on the development processes, demographic changes, and socio-cultural factors (including prejudices and stereotypes) in these countries. While the explanations for how women are chosen and why are well developed in her chapter on receiving states, her analysis would have been enriched if she included the discussion of the role of various sectors of civil society (migrant rights organizations as well as anti-migrant forces) and labour unions in shaping state labour migration policies. Especially in light of Oishi's excellent treatment of the role of civil society in debating the emigration policies of sending states, it would have been useful to see parallel discussion of different positions on labour migration among civil society organizations in receiving states.
In her analysis of sending state policies, Oishi draws attention to the fact that all countries restrict female migration in one way or another and in various degrees, despite the economic benefits that labour migration brings to the sending country. She contends that whereas emigration policies for men are shaped exclusively by economic considerations, emigration policies for women reflect a tension between economic interests and social values. She asserts that social values with respect to women and migration are only partially related to religion, emphasizing that Islam as a religion does not always lead to restrictive policies for female migration. Instead, she invokes nationalism as an important ideology that places symbolic value on women as bearers of a nation's dignity and the foundations of national identities. In Oishi's view, the national ideologies of sending countries set limits on women's cross-border mobility.
While I concur with her analysis of how nationalist ideologies mould sending countries' deliberations on emigration policies, I wish Oishi's analysis of receiving countries' policies was also placed in the context of nationalist ideologies. Oishi does acknowledge William Brubaker's writings on the importance of nationhood and national self-understanding to the development of immigration policies. However, she does not apply this framework to her analysis of the receiving states. Nor does she address how nationalism might produce gendered immigration policies.
On the basis of her interviews with 116 migrant women and 22 "non-migrants," Oishi underlines the importance of examining women's autonomy in their decision-making with respect to international migration. She recognizes that cultural values mediate this autonomy and that women in the Philippines and Sri Lanka are more likely to make their own decisions, whereas women in Bangladesh are considerably more constrained. She recognizes that social networks often facilitate migration. She also suggests that women continue to migrate or stay in the receiving countries beyond the time specified in the contract in response to being "trapped" into migration. Low wages, employment malpractice, financial mismanagement, overwhelming consumerism, spousal infidelity and irresponsible spending, estrangement from the children, and other factors, individually or in combination, compel a migrant woman to stay in or return to the same country, or "step-up" to another country. While Oishi provides very useful illustrations of how women negotiate their decision to migrate and the various reasons behind their decisions, it is less clear to me why she finds it useful to present a typology of migrant women. She recognizes that many women fit more than one of her five ideal types ("adventurous women," "dutiful daughters," "good mothers and wives," "distressed women," and "destitute women"), but nevertheless proceeds to present illustrations of each type. In my view, it would have been more useful to identity various reasons propelling women to migrate, without trying to fit migrant women into the ideal types.
One of the innovative elements of Oishi's analysis involves her discussion of social legitimacy for international female migration. She explores the link between social legitimacy and such factors as (1) the historical legacies of women's employment outside the household; (2) increasing employment of women in export processing zones (EPZs); (3) resultant patterns of rural-urban migration; (4) extant gender equality, especially in education. She finds that neither the link between internal and international migration, nor between employment in EPZs and international migration is as significant as is often assumed by other researchers and policy makers. These links are often subtle and, together with the other two factors discussed by Oishi, they do produce social values that are conducive to the international migration of women.
While Oishi's analysis of female migration in Asia at the macro-state, meso-societal and micro-individual levels is laudable, her treatment of supra-state and global forces that shape international migration is incomplete. Oishi limits her discussion of "globalization" to the globalization of production and services and, to a certain degree, to the limitations in the global governance of migration. Yet, globalization refers to a much wider set of social processes, including the global spread of consumerism and other cultural values, the growing sophistication of technologies of communication, the rise of international migrants' advocacy movements, and the power of such global organizations as the World Bank and the IMF and market liberalization policies they impose on many countries throughout the world. Her analysis of international migration in Asia would have been enriched by her more comprehensive treatment of globalization.
Overall, however, Oishi provides a thorough and insightful analysis of female migration in Asia. I would highly recommend this book to scholars and policy makers interested in international migration, labour studies, and women's studies.
Tanya Basok
Director, Centre for Studies in Social Justice,
and Department of Sociology and Anthropology
University of Windsor
http://www.cjsonline.ca/reviews/womeninmotion.html
March 2006
© Canadian Journal of Sociology Online
