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International labor mobility in Southeast Asia has risen drastically in recent decades and is expected to continue increasing with the establishment of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Community in 2015. This paper looks at the determinants of the movement of workers and find three structural factors that will likely drive further intra-ASEAN migration in the coming years: (i) demographic transition, (ii) large income differentials between economies, and (iii) the porosity of borders. A microfounded gravity model is estimated in order to empirically analyze the main determinants of intra-ASEAN migration in the period 1960-2000. Results suggest that the movement of migrants between Southeast Asian economies has mostly been driven by higher wages and migrant social networks in destination economies, as well as natural disasters in origin economies.
Keywords: ASEAN, determinants, international migration, push and pull factors
JEL codes: F22, J61, O15, 053
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I.Introduction
In recent decades, international labor mobility has played a prominent role in shaping the socioeconomic landscape of East Asian economies. Since the 1980s, high-performing economies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have attracted a growing diaspora of foreign workers from neighboring economies at earlier stages of their development transition (Athukorala 2006). Intra-ASEAN migration skyrocketed from 1.5 million to 6.5 million migrants between 1990 and 2013, representing almost 70% of ASEAN's total migration at the end of the review period (ILO 2014).
The magnitude of intra-ASEAN migration is expected to increase as the ASEAN Economic Community, which was launched in 2015, seeks not only a more integrated regional economic strategy, but also the free mobility of professionals and skilled workers within the region. As ASEAN member states enter this new integration era from very different economic starting points, the freer fl w of goods and capital is likely to accelerate the movement of low-skilled workers. Firms in higher-income economies with better access to infrastructure will raise their competitiveness vis-a-vis producers in lower-income economies, thereby increasing the benefit of migration to such markets (Martin and Abella 2014). Moreover, economic differentiation across the region is progressively manifested in a mix of skill shortages and surpluses among neighboring economies, which increases the economic benefit of international mobility (Manning and Sidorenko 2007).1
The rise in international migration...