Suchergebnisse

Prostitution in Singapore was linked to economic factors in rural China and Japan. Congenital poverty, weak family economies, and rising economic expectations were all part of a set of prevailing conditions that created a vast source of supply of Chinese and Japanese women and young girls for international traffic. Life in both countries was exceptionally difficult in the second half of the nineteenth century. Although China had considerable wealth, most lived a hand to mouth existence in the over-populated rural areas. Poverty in the villages and outlying districts of southeastern China, where many agrarian families lived on the edge of starvation, not only drove women and girls out of the countryside into the ports but acted as a lever on parents already bowed under financial strain. Privation was a handicap which struck hardest at the daughters of peasants and rural labourers. Unable to feed the many mouths they were responsible for, and suffering from chronic economic insecurity, parents sold their daughters to would be benefactors, totally unaware of the future fate in store for so many of them who were taken to Singapore. Poverty and desperate hungry Chinese families were root causes of brothel prostitution in Singapore at the end of the nineteenth century.

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of large inflow of foreign workers on the Singapore manufacturing productivity using a panel data at the disaggregated industry level from 1998 to 2008. The results indicate that foreign workers do make productive contribution to manufacturing productivity, but it is much lower as compared to local workers. However, the author observe the declining capital-labour ratio with the increase in the flow of foreign workers. This is expected to have direct impact on the competitiveness of the manufacturing in the export market. Since new technologies are embodied in new capital investment, the declining capital-labour ratio indicates that workers might be producing output with less technology-intensive capital. Conversely, local workers are more productive with high capital investment, indicating that local workers are more skilled and hence there is more complementarity between capital investments and local human capital.


Design/methodology/approach
– The author implement a panel estimation of disaggregated industry level data of Singapore manufacturing from 1998 to 2008. The author use GMM estimation to control for any endogeneity issues in the estimation.


Findings
– The results indicate that foreign workers do make productive contribution to manufacturing productivity; but it is much lower as compared to local workers. However; the author observe the declining capital-labour ratio with the increase in the flow of foreign workers.


Research limitations/implications
– The data for foreign workers at the disaggregated level is not publically available and this is given for this research purpose. The data for foreign workers is limited as it does not have by educational levels.


Practical implications
– This is the first paper to study impact of foreign workers on manufacturing sector at a disaggregated panel data. There are important policy implications for managing foreign workers and achieving sustainable growth for the Singapore economy.


Social implications
– The welfare and social impacts of foreign workers on the Singapore economy is discussed. There is also the issue of policy calibration to balance the flow of foreign workers in the Singapore economy.


Originality/value
– This is the first paper to study impact of foreign workers on manufacturing sector at a disaggregated panel data.

Abstract
The narrative of the globalization of labour and the demands of the labour market dominates most of the scholarship on Filipino migration, emphasizing their contribution to the Philippine economy via remittances even while these migrants endure difficulties working in forbidding terrain – a companion narrative of sacrifice and endurance. What remains below the surface, however, is the enchantment with the discovery of a new world-view among them. Balik-Islam, the 'return' to Islam, is part of the imaginary among Filipinos who have travelled, lived and worked across territories, connecting them to Mecca, both physically and spiritually. While their labour skills brought them to the Middle East and other Muslim-majority countries, their journey expanded into the discovery of meanings beyond their labour value. In this article, I regard Mecca as an imaginary among Filipino travellers who have somehow bridged the connection between their lost Islamic heritage and their labour, the latter allowing them to reclaim this heritage as authentic to their identity. In this article, I discuss the reconfiguration of Mecca as 'home', 'redemption' and 'resurrection' among itinerant Filipinos: first, as a salve to constant dislocations in an impersonal and aggressive global economy, second, as a source of salvation from indulgence in otherwise forbidden behaviour in foreign territories where the codes of behaviour back home have been transgressed (e.g., adultery) and third, as a spiritual resurrection in which a return to Mecca erases the past and provides a new path, a new identity and a rebirth. However, a more instrumentalist view of conversion, one that depicts conversion as part of a rational strategy to ease the tensions in intimate relations between Catholics and Muslims, also forms part of this article. In this latter dimension, Mecca is an 'absent' place bereft of spiritual meaning and serves to reinforce the homelessness of the migration experience.