Demand for migrant workers: institutional system effects beyond national borders

This paper explores how wealthy countries' reliance on migrant workers is not restricted to migrants working within their borders but extends, through global supply chains, to migrants employed in lower-income countries. It provides an exploratory discussion of how migration, labour, and trade systems interact to argue for the expansion of research on dependence on migrant labour - a 'widening of the lens' - beyond national systems effects. Using the COVID-19 pandemic and associated concern with the provision of essential goods and services, we consider how the employment of migrants in global supply chains, and by extension societal resilience of higher-income countries, is shaped by trade policies and agreements regulating flows of essential products across countries; labour markets and conditions in low- and middle-income countries producing essential products for export; and migration systems between and within low- and middle-income countries. Thus, we tentatively explore how national systems and institutions interlock with those of other states, and also with transnational and international institutions. We illustrate our arguments with a case study of the Malaysian production and export of rubber gloves, an essential good during the COVID-19 pandemic that is heavily dependent on migrant labour.

Automated summary

This paper explores the reliance of wealthy countries on migrant workers, not only within their borders but also in lower-income countries through global supply chains. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as an example, the paper discusses how trade policies, labor markets, and migration systems shape the employment of migrant workers and impact the societal resilience of higher-income countries.