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In the past three decades, the bid to develop Singapore into a global hub for high-tech, knowledge-intensive industries has underpinned Singapore's push to augment its local talent pool by attracting highly skilled transnational migrants. The ensuing influx of "foreign talent" into the "nation-city-state" has triggered major questions relating to social integration and cohesion, and raised implications for Singapore's demographic future and its "multiracial" identity. The article seeks to understand the politics of identity stemming from the increased presence of highly skilled migrants. After reviewing conceptualizations of the globally mobile "international talent" and tracing the key changes in Singapore's immigration-cum-labor policies (particularly those relating to highly skilled migrants), the article examines the fraught terrain on which the "integration" of highly skilled immigrants is staged, giving attention to the social dynamics of interaction between "foreign talent" and the "Singapore core" (popular terms often used in the media), the ensuing identity politics of inclusion and exclusion, and the slippages between the closure associated with building a "nation-state" and the openness critical to "global city" ambitions.

In contrast to existing literature on transnational elites which has stereotypically identified the migrant as an individual careerist, usually white, middle-aged and male, this paper gives attention to aspects of skilled transmigration beyond the productive sphere by bringing into play questions concerning the "family" and "family relations." We suggest that even in situations where different family members do not move as a unit, the "family" and "family relations" continue to be constructed, sustained and reshaped in grounded ways, as signalled by new family forms such as "astronaut husbands" and "parachute kids." Indeed, hyper-mobilities among global elites often lead to families being "lived" and "sustained" transnationally. Using a two-pronged approach that combines a questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews, the paper is based on a study of Chinese-Malaysian professionals who have been accorded expatriate or permanent resident status in Singapore. The study focused on their transmigratory experience and how they negotiate crucial issues relating to the "family." Chinese-Malaysian transmigrants maintain very strong social networks linking them to their dispersed family members, creating new geographies of households. New household strategies and social practices such as transnational marriage, parenting and caring for elderly parents have since evolved to cope with the dispersion of family members across borders.

Migration is an increasingly significant driver of transformations in family configurations and caregiving practices as well as living arrangements. The sustainability of geographically-split family formations is dependent on several factors, including the presence and strength of care support networks among migrants and their left-behind families, access to communication infrastructure and the stability of the families' financial resources. Drawing on both a selective review of relevant academic literature as well as key findings from the CHAMPSEA Project, the article first examines the effects of these three factors on the well-being of migrants' left-behind family members, especially children. The article also considers major implications of the project's findings, as well as possible challenges for migration and development policies. One area of concern for migration and development policy arising from our research findings is the need to provide better support for left-behind caregivers or carers who are substituting for the absent migrant in childcare and domestic work but who may also need care and support themselves. Another area relates to the need to improve communication infrastructure to help migrants and their families maintain their relationships across transnational spaces; while a third lies with the importance of minimizing migrant families' economic stress stemming from the cycle of debts resulting from exorbitant broker fees and the mismanagement of remittances. By acknowledging both the social and economic costs of international labor migration on families, governments of labor-sending countries can create a more effective legal and institutional framework as well as design suitable supporting mechanisms for left-behind families. There is then a stronger possibility that migration can become a sustainable development strategy for transnational families in South-East Asia.