This article compares the moral significance of two types of immigration, that which is based on the unification of citizens and non-citizens and that which is based on the skilled labor needs of the receiving society. I assess the interests of both citizens and non-citizens affected by each of these types of inflows and argue that unification admissions should be given priority over skilled workers but states retain a qualified moral permission to incentivize skilled worker (...) class='Hi'>migration. (shrink)

Many nations in the developing world invest scarce funding into training health workers. When these workers migrate to richer countries, particularly when this migration occurs before the source community can recoup the costs of training, the destination community realizes a net gain in resources by obtaining the workers' skills without having to pay for their training. This effect of health worker migration has frequently been condemned as 'poaching' or a case of theft. I assess the charge that (...) the rich nations of the world poach the resources of the developing world through the active recruitment of migrants. I argue that the charge of poaching is misguided in these cases. The misuse of the term poaching is particularly troubling as it distracts attention away from the many actual moral wrongs taking place through the process of health worker migration and objectifies health workers. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungIm gesundheitspolitischen Kontext werden die internationale Rekrutierung und Migration von Ärztinnen, Ärzten und Personal in Gesundheitsfachberufen seit langem diskutiert. Diese Studie untersucht die thematischen Schwerpunkte dieser Debatten um ethische Aspekte der internationalen Rekrutierung in der Public Health Literatur mit Peer Review. Unser Artikel diskutiert, welche Implikationen für gesundheitspolitische Maßnahmen bezogen auf gesundheitliche Ungleichheiten diese fachspezifischen akademischen Diskussionen aufwerfen. Wir erstellten eine qualitative Übersichtsarbeit basierend auf Literaturrecherchen zu fachspezifischen internationalen Studien mit Schwerpunkt auf theoriebasierten und qualitativen Forschungsdesigns in den Datenbanken (...) PubMed und Web of Science. In die Analyse einbezogene Artikel wurden mit der Critical Appraisal Skills Program Checkliste für qualitative Forschung bewertet und anhand eines thematischen Inhaltsanalyseverfahrens auf gemeinsame Muster untersucht und kodiert. 17 Artikel wurden in die Analyse einbezogen. Diese Artikel befassten sich mehrheitlich entweder mit Pflegeberufen oder mit Ärztinnen bzw. Ärzten, und wurden verfasst aus Perspektiven des globalen Nordens. Die thematische Inhaltsanalyse ergab, dass ethische Aspekte generell zusammen mit einer allgemeinen Übersicht über Gesundheitssysteme und Ungleichheiten zwischen Ländern genannt wurden und Migration zwischen Ländern stärker im Fokus stand als Migration innerhalb einzelner Landesgrenzen. Vorgeschlagene Lösungsansätze in der Public Health Literatur sind meist ökonomischer Natur und stellen globale Finanzausgleiche zwischen Ländern oder nationale Verbesserung von Arbeitsbedingungen zur Diskussion. Möglichkeiten der Evaluation solcher Lösungen werden selten vertieft. Insgesamt fokussiert diese fachspezifische Diskussion mehrheitlich auf einen systemischen Ansatz und problematisiert die Migration von Personal in Gesundheitsfachberufen sowie von Ärztinnen und Ärzten. Unsere Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass die akademische Forschung im gesundheitswissenschaftlichen und medizinischen Feld derzeit nur Vorschläge für politische Maßnahmen formuliert, die nicht grundsätzlich die globale Ordnung der Gesundheitssysteme in Frage stellen. Die Diskussion scheint daher geeignet zu sein, ein Bewusstsein für Benachteiligungen zu schaffen, ohne diese radikal beseitigen zu wollen. Eine vertiefte Auseinandersetzung mit Aspekten von Gender, Ethnizität und übergeordneten intersektionalen Bedingungen sowie Auswirkungen für und von internationaler Rekrutierung und Migration könnte die Diskussion schärfen. (shrink)

In the early 1920s, a time of significant technical change in the lumber industry, hundreds of African American workers migrated from the South to work in the mills of Siskiyou County, in northern California. White workers, who dominated working-class politics in the western timber industry, understood this as the arrival of the South in the western woods. This involved the construction of a historically particular logic of racial privilege founded on local understandings of technical and environmental change, labor organization, and (...) the broader political economic experience of the U.S. working class. The specific racism of the moment demonstrates how labor relations, occupational opportunities, and skill not only reflect racial politics but are simultaneously manipulated to produce and naturalize racial stratification. (shrink)

Calls to expand temporary work programmes come from two directions. First, as global justice advocates observe, every year thousands of poor migrants cross borders in search of better opportunities, often in the form of improved employment opportunities. As a result, international organizations now lobby in favour of expanding ‘guest-work’ opportunities, that is, opportunities for citizens of poorer countries to migrate temporarily to wealthier countries to fill labour shortages. Second, temporary work programmes permit domestic governments to respond to two internal, contradictory (...) political pressures: (1) to fill labour shortages and (2) to do so without increasing rates of permanent migration. Temporary work programmes permit governments to appear ‘tough’ on migration, while responding to employer pressure to locate workers willing to work in low-skilled, poorly remunerated positions. The coincidence of national self-interest and global justice generates a strong case in favour of expanding guest-work. We evaluate the moral benefits and burdens of expanding guest-work opportunities, and conclude that although there are benefits to be gleaned from the perspective of global wealth redistribution, at present, temporary work programmes are generally unjust. We will argue that just temporary work programmes, in time, permit temporary workers to attain citizenship. This spells the end of traditional temporary work programmes, which require that workers return to their home country in time; instead, what is temporary is the employment obligation that must be fulfilled as a requirement to access citizenship. As long as this requirement is met, we endorse guest-work programmes as a tool to respond to global inequality. (shrink)

he paper analyses migration flows from the Philippines in two gendered occupations: domestic helpers and computer programmers. The international division of labour theory claims that foreign investment determines migration from developing countries, especially of women, towards low-skilled gendered occupations in developed countries. This paper shows that the division of labour is neither gendered nor international in the predicted sense. For instance, data from Philippines Overseas Employment Agency shows that the theory is Eurocentric as Northern America and Europe (...) are destinations for only 3 per cent of domestic workers’ flows. The paper argues that neo-Marxism creates bias in gender and migration research and hinders understanding of important gendered effects concerning migrants. Two examples of such gendered effects are highlighted here: the higher vulnerability to legislative change of migrant men employed as domestic workers in Italy and the higher penetration of women into computer programming in the migrant flows to the U.S. (shrink)

The metaphor of “care drain” has been created as a womanly parallel to the “brain drain” idea. Just as “brain drain” suggests that the skilled migrants are an economic loss for the sending country, “care drain” describes the migrant women hired as care workers as a loss of care for their children left behind. This paper criticizes the construction of migrant women as “care drain” for three reasons: 1) it is built on sexist stereotypes, 2) it misrepresents and devalues (...) care work, and 3) it misses the opportunity for a theoretical change about how skills in migration contexts can be understood. (shrink)

Our main thesis is that the U.S. has a duty of justice to adopt an open-border policy with regard to economic migrants because it is significantly responsible for the unjust social and economic conditions that bring such migrants to its borders. From this perspective, President Bush’s recent “guest worker” proposal is morally objectionable because it is designed more to serve U.S. business interests than the interests of the migrants. We address three objections to opening borders: it will worsen the (...) economic condition especially of low-skilled native workers; it will harm developing countries by increasing the so-called “brain drain”; and it is preferable to discharge our responsibility to the global poor by increasing development assistance instead of adopting an open-border policy. (shrink)

Liberals are concerned with the equal moral status of all human beings. This article discusses what flows from this premise for moral cosmopolitans when analysing temporary foreign worker programs for low-skilled workers. Some have hailed these programs as a tool to achieve redistributive global goals. However, I argue that in the example of Live-In-Caregivers in Canada, the morally most problematic aspect is that it provokes vulnerability of individual workers. Once in a situation of vulnerability, important conditions of individual (...) autonomy are jeopardized. Even if these programs provide for redistribution of opportunities on a global scale, the challenge such programs pose to the conditions of autonomy can not outweigh these gains. Instead, they need to be re-assessed and changed to fundamentally express equal moral status of all human beings. (shrink)

Liberals are concerned with the equal moral status of all human beings. This article discusses what flows from this premise for moral cosmopolitans when analysing temporary foreign worker programs for low-skilled workers. Some have hailed these programs as a tool to achieve redistributive global goals. However, I argue that in the example of Live-In-Caregivers in Canada, the morally most problematic aspect is that it provokes vulnerability of individual workers. Once in a situation of vulnerability, important conditions of individual (...) autonomy are jeopardized. Even if these programs provide for redistribution of opportunities on a global scale, the challenge such programs pose to the conditions of autonomy can not outweigh these gains. Instead, they need to be re-assessed and changed to fundamentally express equal moral status of all human beings. (shrink)

Liberals are concerned with the equal moral status of all human beings. This article discusses what flows from this premise for moral cosmopolitans when analysing temporary foreign worker programs for low-skilled workers. Some have hailed these programs as a tool to achieve redistributive global goals. However, I argue that in the example of Live-In-Caregivers in Canada, the morally most problematic aspect is that it provokes vulnerability of individual workers. Once in a situation of vulnerability, important conditions of individual (...) autonomy are jeopardized. Even if these programs provide for redistribution of opportunities on a global scale, the challenge such programs pose to the conditions of autonomy can not outweigh these gains. Instead, they need to be re-assessed and changed to fundamentally express equal moral status of all human beings. (shrink)

I am very grateful to the five commentators for taking the time to respond to my article ‘The Active Recruitment of Health Workers: A Defense’.1 I have learned a great deal from each of their commentaries, and I am sorry to say that I will be unable to address all their important comments and criticisms in detail. In this response, I will focus on replying to the commentators’ major objections.In my paper, I suggested that the emigration of health workers from (...) poor countries might not have harmful effects on health outcomes in general, or may only have relatively small negative effects in a wide range of cases. Several commentators challenge my analysis. Carwyn Rhys Hooper suggests that it is prima facie plausible that the emigration of health workers causes harm, and that there is insufficient evidence to reject this claim.2 Gilian Brock3 and Iain Bassington4 argue that my paper failed to consider the full range of possible harms that the active recruitment of health workers brings about. These commentators are correct in that we need more evidence about the effects of migration, and that it may be too soon to arrive at the all-things-considered judgment that the emigration of health workers does not generally enable serious harm.Nonetheless, I believe that the active recruitment of health workers is still permissible. For one thing, I am less confident than Brock that the empirical research on skilled migration clearly establishes that the migration of skilled professionals causes harm to sending countries. There is a sizable body of empirical research that is inconsistent with many of Brock's claims. It is not obvious that the emigration of skilled workers depletes human capital in the sending country.5 ,6 In fact, there is evidence that the opportunity to emigrate …. (shrink)

France’s agreements on the joint management of migration flows figure centrally within studies of bilateral migration agreements. With their origins in friendship and navigation treaties of the late 19th century, the AJMs are successors to the postcolonial, circular mobility conventions of the 1960s, and are uniquely positioned for periodizing the evolution of bilaterally negotiated labor mobilities. Nonetheless, due to the European Union’s reluctance to embrace mass regularization and the EU Member States’ legislative powers over labor markets, they have (...) time and again scotched France’s ambition to leverage preferential labor market entries in exchange for more cooperation over irregular migration. Through documents and statistical data analysis, this Article studies the case of Senegal’s negotiation of additional pathways to France for its lower-skilled workers. At the center is France’s administrative court of appeals, which has confirmed the broad margin of discretion over Art. 42 in the AJM between France and Senegal. This jurisprudence has decoupled the automatic linkage between a job listed under duress in France under the Annex to the AJM and the entitlement to exceptional admission. We argue that France’s courts have removed a privilege of Senegalese workers, which has re-politicized France’s migration diplomacy with Senegal. At the same time, retention of the prefectorial discretionary power has levelled the playing field among West and North African countries that have concluded similar bilateral agreements with France. This Article adds to the research on bilateral migration agreements by proposing a multilevel legal analysis, which studies AJMs in the context of France’s common law, EU labor and return directives, and the multilateral of WTO/gats liberalization. (shrink)

Compulsory (health) service contracts have recently received considerable attention in the normative literature. The service contracts are considered and offered as a permissible and liberal alternative to emigration restrictions if individuals relinquish their right to exit via contract in exchange for the state‐funded tertiary education. To that end, the recent normative literature on the service programmes has particularly focused on discussing the circumstances or conditions in which the contracts should be signed, so that they are morally binding on the part (...) of the skilled workers. However, little attention is devoted to the relevance of the right to exit for the debate on compulsory service programmes. In this paper, I argue that even if the service contracts are voluntary, and thus the would‐be medical students voluntarily relinquish their right to exit, the reasons behind the right should be taken into account for the contracts to be morally valid. A clear understanding of the right to exit is a must in order not to breach its basic components and for the service contracts to be morally binding. To that end, I provide two accounts of the reasons to value the right to exit by presenting Patti Lenard's discussion of the right to exit and by reconstructing James Griffin's account of human rights. I conclude by offering brief ethical considerations for compulsory health service programmes grounded in the reasons to value the right to exit. (shrink)

Despite the fact that there is unmet demand for nurses in health services around the world, some nurses migrate to destination countries to work as domestic workers. According to the literature, these nurses experience contradictions in class mobility and are at increased risk of exploitation and abuse. This article presents a critical discussion of the migration of nurses as domestic workers using the concept of ‘global care chain’. Although several scholars have used the concept of global care chains to (...) illustrate south to north migration of domestic workers and nurses, there is a paucity of literature on the migration of nurses to destination countries as domestic workers. The migration of nurses to destination countries as domestic workers involves the extraction of reproductive and skilled care labor without adequate compensatory mechanisms to such skilled nurses. Using the case of the Canadian Live‐in Caregiver Program, the study illustrates how the global movement of internationally educated nurses as migrant domestic workers reinforces inequities that are structured along the power gradient of gender, class, race, nationality, and ethnicity, especially within an era of global nursing shortage. (shrink)

The U.K.'s National Health Service (NHS) is critically reliant on staff from overseas, which means that a sizeable number of U.K. healthcare professionals have received their training at the cost of other states, whose populations are urgently in need of healthcare professionals. At the same time, while healthcare is widely seen as a primary good, many migrants are unable to access the NHS without charge, and anti‐immigration political trends are likely to further reduce that access. Both of these topics have (...) received close attention in the global health ethics literature. In this article, I make the novel move of suggesting that these two seemingly disparate issues should be folded into the same moral narrative. The ‘brain drain’ upon which the NHS and its users depend derives from the same gradient of wealth, security, and opportunity that produces migrants who require the NHS. I endorse moral cosmopolitanism as a lens for understanding patients' right to healthcare regardless of nationality or immigration status. I argue that the NHS in its current formulation effectively enacts a partial cosmopolitanism in its reliance on medical workers from abroad, but could more meaningfully instantiate that cosmopolitanism were it to offer the same healthcare to migrants as it does to citizens. (shrink)

Department of Philosophy and Center for Health Policy, Research and Ethics, George Mason University, 4400 University Avenue, MS 2D7, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA. Tel.: +1 703 993 1724; Fax: +1 5703 993 1555; Email: leckenwi{at}gmu.edu ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> . Abstract Here I consider the migration of health workers and propose a conception of transnational justice that can best address the concerns it raises, including the perpetuation of global health inequities. My focus will (...) be on nurses and direct care workers (DCWs), also called paraprofessionals—the vast majority of whom are women—coming from the global South to the United States. In the first part of the paper I will identify the factors behind this flow of what I will hereafter call ‘care workers’. From there, I will describe a conception of transnational justice that seems especially promising and explore selected policy options. Finally, I will conclude by offering specific prescriptions for action on the part of a wide range of agents, including institutions as well as individuals. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Health worker shortages in many countries are reaching crisis levels, exacerbated by factors associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. In New Zealand, the medical specialists union has called for a health workforce emergency to be declared, yet at the same time, many foreign-trained healthcare workers are unable to stay in the country or unable to work. While their health systems differ, countries such as New Zealand, the USA and the UK at least partially rely on international medical graduates (IMGs) to (...) ensure access to health services, particularly in underserved communities. This paper focuses on the challenges faced by many IMGs, particularly those that constrain their capacity to live and work in the countries that rely on their skills. These challenges give rise to two ethical problems. First, they represent a failure of reciprocity towards IMGs; second, they represent a source of harm, both to IMGs themselves and to communities whose healthcare service depends on contributions made by IMGs. We argue that brain waste and disvaluing the contributions of IMGs and other foreign-trained health professionals have significant costs for maintaining a functional healthcare system, costs which must be adequately recognised and counted. (shrink)

This article examines the connections between employment agencies, ethics and migrant workers. The article identifies three approaches adopted by agencies towards ethics and migrant workers, namely, ‘business case’, ‘minimal compliance’ and ‘social justice’ approaches. Through case studies of three agencies in the UK, the article explores the potential and limitations of each of these approaches for meeting the needs of migrant workers. The article points to the limitations of both the business case and ‘minimal compliance’ approaches, stemming from tensions between (...) the attempt to put in place ethical approaches towards the employment of migrant workers and the imperatives of the competitive strategies being pursued by agencies. The article points to the potential for social enterprise agencies to effectively meet the needs of migrants. These agencies can focus on more than just the first transition of migrants into the labour market; can formalize transitions within the labour market and link people to jobs that are more appropriate to their skills and experience, as a means of preventing the perpetuation of skill underutilisation. (shrink)

Commentary on Jeremy Snyder, Is Health Worker Migration a Case of Poaching?

Faced with high levels of unemployment and discrimination in Poland, Polish women have made up a very large proportion of those leaving the former Communist states of central Europe, to work in EU member states. They have constituted a large undocumented migrant workforce in Europe, usually working as domestic workers and carers in the informal economy. Poland’s membership of the EU is starting to regulate Polish women’s work abroad and to increase their access to better paid and skilled work (...) in the formal labour market. New market-led immigration policies in Europe are still selective and restricted however. What Polish women really need from the EU is help in securing a new framework of gender equality and equal treatment in Poland that offers hope for an improvement in their rights at home. (shrink)

This piece outlines an argument against recent changes in U.S. immigration policy that aim to give priority in admissions to skilled workers rather than family members seeking unification. I argue that democratic states have a moral obligation to admit individuals seeking unification with family members, rather than give priority to skilled workers.

The paper describes supportive actions for users of NC machine tools. From the technical point of view, this comprises new input/output media for interaction with the machine as well as new software tools for help systems. From the organisational point of view, concepts for group work are to be supported and a methology for participation of users in the development process is suggested. A software tool for job order planning is presented which combines organisational and technical aspects. One of the (...) aims of the research reported here, is to explore options of systems which keep the human expert in the loop of shopfloor production. (shrink)

According to the brain drain argument, there are good reasons for states to limit the exit of their skilled workers (more specifically, healthcare workers), because of the negative impacts this type of migration has for other members of the community from which they migrate. Some theorists criticise this argument as illiberal, while others support it and ground a duty to stay of the skilled workers on rather vague concepts like patriotic virtue, or the legitimate expectations of their (...) state and co-citizens. In this article, on the contrary, we suggest that the liberal conception of states’ legitimate political authority demands, and not just permits, that developing states from which migration of skilled workers occurs set up contractual mechanisms. These mechanisms will ensure that state-funded training in the health sector is provided against a commitment on the part of future professionals to reciprocate with their services for the benefits obtained. If one of the conditions for the state to maintain legitimate political authority is to provide basic services such as healthcare to its subjects (while respecting at the same time their autonomy and freedom), then this is what developing states affected by the brain drain ought to do. What we call the authority-based approach to the brain drain also helps to clarify the obligations that other states have not to interfere with these contractual mechanisms when they exist, and not to profit from their absence. Inspired by FIFA’s legal instruments of training compensation and solidarity mechanism for the transfer of players, we conclude by suggesting a plausible global policy to complement this authority-based approach. (shrink)

Health-worker migration, commonly called "medical brain drain", refers to the mass migration of trained and skilled health professionals from low-income to high-income countries. This is currently leaving a significant number of poor countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, with critical staff shortages in the healthcare sector. A broad consensus exists that, where medical brain drain exacerbates such shortages, it is unethical, and this review presents the main arguments underpinning this view. Notwithstanding the general agreement, which policies are (...) justifiable on ethical grounds to tackle brain drain and how best to go about implementing them remains controversial. The review offers a discussion of the specific ethical issues that have to be taken into account when deciding which policy measures to prioritise and suggests a strategy of policy implementation to address medical brain drain as a matter of urgency. (shrink)

I would like to thank all of the respondents to my article both for their expansions on the theme of health worker migration and for their criticisms of my argument against the use of the term ’poaching’ in the context of international health worker migration. In this response, I will clarify my argument in light of the worries raised primarily by Tache and Schillinger and Ari Zivotofsky and Naomi Zivotofsky.

This doctoral thesis within applied ethics consists of four articles together with a cover essay. All articles concern the ethics of skilled health worker emigration from under-served and resourcepoor regions, often referred to as ‘medical brain drain’. Methodologically, the thesis utilizes normative ethical theory to analyse the justifiability of temporary or long-term emigration restrictions, such as compulsory health service programmes, that are employed by developing countries with the aim of safeguarding their needs for health care provision. Such programmes (...) restrict the mobility of individual health workers and give rise to conflicts between different types of rights and interests. -/- The ethics of skilled worker emigration warrants an exploration of the ethical implications of such restrictive programmes for different stakeholders, such as the under-served countries and health workers; and a clarification of the rights and duties of the concerned parties. This thesis provides a thorough analysis and clarification of such rights restrictions and offers theoretically and empirically grounded recommendations as to how they ought to be managed. Rights theory and accounts of individual responsibilities are employed to assess the acceptability of restrictive health service programmes. -/- In brief, the thesis (a) discusses the conditions under which individual health workers may have responsibilities to attend to the basic health needs of a population, (b) explicates the rights at stake such as the freedom of movement and the right to exit, (c) offers insight into what it means to restrict one’s right and its implications and (d) suggests ways for conflicting rights and interests to be balanced and resolved. Taken together, the thesis presents a nuanced approach towards individual responsibilities in under-served contexts and an improved understanding of the right to exit as well as the implications of restricting the right. The thesis also contributes to the ethics of skilled worker emigration with a discussion on the responsibilities of skilled workers when the other parties do not fulfil their fair share of responsibilities. (shrink)

The international migration of health workers, including long-term care workers for aging populations, contributes to a shortage of these workers in many parts of the world. In the Anglophone Caribbean, LCW shortages and the migration of nurses to take on LCW positions abroad threaten the health of local populations and widen global inequities in health. Many responses have been proposed to address the international migration of health workers generally, including making it more difficult for these workers to (...) emigrate and increasing and improving local employment opportunities. In this article, we suggest an additional means of ethically reducing health worker migration, targeting the Anglophone Caribbean specifically. Countries in this region can take advantage of their warmer climate and well-trained work force to encourage aging populations in the global north to emigrate temporarily or permanently through international retirement migration. As a result, countries in the Anglophone Caribbean can not only decrease the international migration of trained health workers through the provision of well-paying, local jobs, but potentially reverse this flow by drawing on the international diaspora of their workers. International retirement migration, if carefully managed, can reduce global inequities in health while treating both retirees and LCWs ethically. (shrink)

In der Öffentlichkeit häufig als Auswanderungsland wahrgenommen, unternahm China in den letzten Jahren verstärkt Bemühungen, qualifizierte Fachkräfte aus dem Ausland für den chinesischen Arbeitsmarkt zu gewinnen. Die Einführung eines Fachkräfteeinwanderungssystem mit abgestuften Rechten für Arbeitsmigrant:innen sollte diese Entwicklung fördern. Die vorliegende Analyse zeigt, dass diese Reform des Einwanderungssystems die Gerichtspraxis nicht verändert hat. Abseits der politischen Diskurse um die Anwerbung von internationalen Talenten und der Propagierung Chinas als Wissenssupermacht, bleibt China aufgrund der existierenden Probleme im bestehenden Rechtssystems für Arbeitsmigrant:innen unattraktiv.

Over recent decades, developments in network governance have seen governments around the world cede considerable authority and responsibility to commercial migration intermediaries for recruiting and managing temporary migrant labour. Correspondingly, a by-product of network governance has been the emergence of soft employment regulation in which voluntary codes of conduct supplement hard legal employment standards. This paper explores these developments in the context of temporary migrant workers employed in Australian horticulture. First the paper analyses the growing use of temporary migrant (...) labour in this industry. It then describes how different types of intermediaries interact with this workforce. The paper then outlines both hard and soft employment regulations, and contrasts them with actual employment conditions, questioning how a network governance approach has affected this vulnerable workforce. The paper concludes that changes in network governance of migration and employment relations have emasculated formal legal regulation, leaving market forces to operate without effective or ethical constraints at the expense of the public good. (shrink)

Brain drain critiques and human rights advocates have conflicting views on emigration. From a brain drain perspective, the emigration harms a country when emigrants are skilled and the source country is poor. From the human rights perspective, the right "to leave any country, including one's own" is a fundamental right, protected for all, whatever their skills. Is the concern with poverty and social justice at odds with the right to emigrate? At the beginning of the l970s, the economist Jagdish (...) Bhagwati replied in the negative. He imagined a tax on the income earned by the skilled migrants in the destination country, to the benefit of the source country. He thus sought to reconcile the right to emigration and the brain drain effects. -/- This article argues that there is no need to tax skilled migrants in order to reconcile the right to emigration and social justice. Social justice is not incompatible with the right to emigration but rather with restrictions on mobility. If it is both the case that equal opportunities are a minimal requisite for social justice, and that access to opportunities implies freedom of movement, as I shall argue, then the brain drain criticism doesn't satisfy the minimal requirements of social justice. -/- The article is divided into three parts. Each part rejects one of the possible justifications of the Bhagwati tax, that is, as a way, for skilled migrants, (i.) to compensate the welfare loss occasioned to their country of origin; (ii.) to discharge for their obligation to the national community when it publicly financed their education; and (iii.) to compensate for the resulting inequality of opportunities between themselves and their non-migrant compatriots. (shrink)

Over recent decades, developments in network governance have seen governments around the world cede considerable authority and responsibility to commercial migration intermediaries for recruiting and managing temporary migrant labour. Correspondingly, a by-product of network governance has been the emergence of soft employment regulation in which voluntary codes of conduct supplement hard legal employment standards. This paper explores these developments in the context of temporary migrant workers employed in Australian horticulture. First the paper analyses the growing use of temporary migrant (...) labour in this industry. It then describes how different types of intermediaries interact with this workforce. The paper then outlines both hard and soft employment regulations, and contrasts them with actual employment conditions, questioning how a network governance approach has affected this vulnerable workforce. The paper concludes that changes in network governance of migration and employment relations have emasculated formal legal regulation, leaving market forces to operate without effective or ethical constraints at the expense of the public good. (shrink)

The Article traces recent trends in the management and distribution of citizenship within the Israeli context of the 1990s, as they have evolved in the wake of new modes of migration that are neither Jewish nor Palestinian and that stem from liberalized market policies. The Article focuses on administrative and policy initiatives taken since September 2003 that deal with the naturalization of the children of undocumented labor migrants. The vulnerable situation of these migrants in lacking resident status and being (...) eligible for deportation, as well as the predominant Jewish ethno-national character of the Israeli state, make these initiatives and policy measures particularly surprising. However, these measures also reveal the boundaries of liberalizing reforms, as they become part of general trends in the nation-state towards deeming membership manageable without upsetting its national politics of identity. Indeed, it will be argued that, though this liberalizing legal reform is part of a larger context of demystification of national citizenship taking place in Israel following the adoption of socioeconomic liberal policies, it is also indicative of the adaptability of the nation-state as it seeks to reprioritize ethno-national definitions of citizenship in the face of new challenges. (shrink)

'Trade in Health is a timely reflection on the interface of economics with the ethics and public policy facets of the international movement of patients. Health issues such as these are at the forefront of modern political economy."National" health is increasingly less so. Reisman's previous scholarship in this area is brought to bear in an insightful and eminently readable and engaging fashion. In an area where uncovering the facts is more difficult than "decyphering the Dead Sea Scrolls", such a reflective (...) work on the critical aspects of political economy helps to fill a void in considering whether such trade is likely to be in the interests of patients, nations and the global community. In addition to the rosy picture of healthy and wealthy tourists having a sojourn for medical care during a vacation, Reisman is not afraid to tackle the thorny issues concerning trade in organs, eggs and even death, in this sobering and comprehensive volume. It is a rare skill to bring the luminaries of Smith, Marshall, Mill and Confucius to bear on such a contemporary tale! International travel by patients is at the nexus of a revolution in global health. It is driving and affecting aspects of foreign investment, health worker migration and e-health provision. Reisman skilfully links these foundations of health care, and as such provides critical text for consideration by those seeking to build and strengthen future health systems. Trade in Health is an excellent overview. It provides critical insights for those new to the area as well as new information and challenges for those of us involved for a number of years.' - Richard Smith, Professor of Health Ssytem Economics and Dean of Faculty of Public Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK. Once exports and imports meant agriculture and industry. In the global economy and the electronic age, trade is also expanding into the service sector. This timely book closely examines trade in health. It documents the growth of a cross-national service that in the past was mainly consumed at home. Following from his highly successful book Health Tourism, Professor David Reisman offers a comprehensive and searching multidisciplinary account of the way in which medical services, patients, capital and professionals are making up a global healthcare economy that crosses borders. He reflects on their pursuit of lower prices, better quality and a differentiated product, and suggests that public policy is essential if the ethical capital of interdependent societies is not to be eroded by the international market in health and care. Written in a concise and lucid form, this original book will be of great interest to all people interested in the internationalization of health care. Combining theory and empirical evidence from economics, tourism and medical care, scholars involved in health policy and social administration will find much of significance in this authoritative study. (shrink)

In this paper I present two reasons why generalized skill-selection--a policy whereby skill, education, and economic independence are indefinitely prioritized in immigration decisions--is pro tanto unjust. First, such policies feed into existing biases, exacerbating status harms for low-SES citizens. The claim that we prefer the skilled to the unskilled, the educated to the uneducated, and the financially secure to the insecure is also heard by citizens. And there is considerable overlap between this message and the stereotypes and biases that (...) set their social status. Skill-selection can reinforce these biases, offering state support for the claim that they are less desirable as members of the society. -/- Second, the need for skilled immigrants ordinarily depends upon and reinforces failures of fair equality of opportunity (FEO). According to the dependency thesis, the need for skilled migrants stems from a failure to ensure domestic FEO. Many low-SES residents would desire to work, for example, as doctors or nurses. However, unequal education, as well as poverty and debt, have made such opportunities largely inaccessible. According to the reinforcement thesis, skill-selection disincentivizes the pursuit of FEO. A state that can meet domestic labor needs through less costly immigration policies will be disinclined to pursue programs designed to equalize opportunities for low-SES residents. -/- Generalized skill-selection in high-income countries like the US is, therefore, pro tanto unjust. However, this is not an argument for excluding the skilled. Skilled immigrants can be admitted through other policies—open borders, family-reunification, or a lottery—without the state signaling that the skilled are more desirable or perpetuating failures of FEO. And states can, responding to local emergencies, temporarily select for particular professions without contributing to these injustices. These concerns only arise when skill is generally and indefinitely prioritized. (shrink)

In European industrialized countries, a large number of companies in the healthcare, hotel, and catering sectors, as well as in the technology sector, are affected by demographic, political, and technological developments resulting in a greater need of skilled workers with a simultaneous shortage of skilled workers (CEDEFOP, 2015, 2016). Consequently, employers have to address workers who have not been taken into account such as low-skilled workers, workers returning from a career break, people with a migrant background, older (...) people, and jobseekers and train them, in order to guarantee the professionalization of this workforce (Festing and Harsch, 2018). Continuing vocational education and training (CVET) is seen as an indispensable tool; because CVET has advantages for both employers and employees, it helps to increase the productivity of companies (Barrett and O’Connell, 2001), to prevent the widening of socioeconomic disparities (Dieckhoff, 2007), and to open up career opportunities for the workforce (Rubenson and Desjardins, 2009). However, participation rate on CVET seems to differ, depending on institutional factors (such as sector and size of the company) and individual characteristics (such as qualification level, migration background, age and time of absence from work) (e.g., Rubenson and Desjardins, 2009; Wiseman and Parry, 2017). In contrast to previous research, our study aims to provide a holistic view of reasons for and against CVET, combining the different perspectives of employers and (potential) employees. The analysis of reasons and barriers was carried out based on semi-structured interviews. Fifty-seven employers, 73 employees, and 42 jobseekers (potential employees) from the sectors retail, healthcare and social services, hotels and catering, and technology were interviewed. Results point to considerable differences in the reasons and barriers mentioned by the disadvantaged groups. These differences are particularly significant between employees on the one side and employers, as well as jobseekers, on the other side, while the reasons to attend CVET of jobseekers are more similar to those of employers. The results can be used to tailor CVET more closely to the needs of (potential) employees and thus strengthen both the qualification and career opportunities of (potential) employees and the competitiveness and productivity of companies. (shrink)

This chapter criticizes policies that aim to restrict the emigration or immigration of skilled workers, analyzes the ethics of recruitment, and proposes basing an ethics of skilled migration based on the violation of negative duties not to uphold unjust institutions.

Economic migration, international mobility and refugee crises have brought about both risks and opportunities. Alongside the socio-economic and cultural potential to capitalize on they have generated challenges that need to be addressed. In such an increasingly globalized and diverse world, intercultural competences have become strategic resources underpinning the concept of democratic citizenship and social integration. The objectives of the present article are thus two-fold: firstly we want to explore the concept of cultural cognition and highlight the importance of intercultural (...) and diversity awareness, and, secondly, we intend to present and discuss the results of intercultural training sessions for uniformed services conducted within the “Open Lodz” project (Otwarta Łódź POWR.03.01.00-IP.08-00-3MU/18) (2019-2022) coordinated by the University of Lodz in collaboration with the Marek Edelman Dialogue Center in Łódź, the Municipal Police, the City of Lodz Office and the City Guard in Łódź. The project was aimed at enhancing foreigners’ quality of life and functioning in Poland. With this goal in view project activities, addressed at two groups of beneficiaries, namely foreign nationals and frontline workers (police, city guard officers, and municipal clerks) focused on improving communication skills (linguistic and cultural competences). (shrink)

While many argue investment-based criteria for immigration are wrong or at least problematic, skill-based criteria remain relatively uncontroversial. This is normatively inconsistent. This article assesses three prominent normative objections to investment-based selection criteria for immigrants: that they wrongfully discriminate between prospective immigrants that they are unfair, and that they undermine political equality among citizens. It argues that either skill-based criteria are equally susceptible to these objections, or that investment-based criteria are equally shielded from them. Indeed, in some ways investment-based criteria (...) are less normatively problematic than skill-based criteria. Given this analysis, the resistance to investment-based migration criteria, but not to skill-based criteria, is inconsistent. (shrink)

This article examines how skilled middle-class Tamil women—an Indian regional group—negotiate with gender to strategize immigration to and settlement in the United States by drawing on life-history interviews with 33 first-generation professional women, most of whom entered the United States as family migrants. I find that the women negotiate with gender to configure Tamil Brahminical relations of subordination, thereby asserting their subjectivity through “strident embedded agency” in immigration. In this way, they realize gender non-normative desires for immigration, engage in (...) gender non-normative actions, and perform normative actions in reconstituted ways. Even as their strident embedded agency facilitates their embodiment of configured Tamil womanhood, it produces Tamil Brahmin relations of subordination. This article delineates the complexity of women’s subjectivities and agency and Tamil women’s agential strategizing of immigration as emergent from their gendered and caste/classed social locations. (shrink)