Global financial crisis and return of South Asian Gulf migrants: patterns and determinants of their integration to local labour markets

Abraham, Vinoj and Rajan, Irudaya S (2011): Global financial crisis and return of South Asian Gulf migrants: patterns and determinants of their integration to local labour markets.

Abstract

Studies record that a large number of South Asian migrant workers in the Middle–East had to return to their home countries owing to the global financial crisis and loss of jobs. However, their distress of loss of job in the gulf is compounded by the fact that in their own home countries the rehabilitation and reintegration of these workers is tedious and often the returnees are thrust with forced choices. This paper, based on a primary survey conducted in five south Asian countries, namely; Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India, concludes that on return, the employment status of REMs were in general worse off than in their host country with high share of casualisation, self employment and unemployment in the crisis year and a decline in their average monthly earnings. The analysis suggests that those who found employment on return was in fact driven by economic compulsions to reduce their job search period and cost.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Global Financial Crisis; Return Migrants; South Asia; Employment; Wages
• Subjects: F - International Economics > F2 - International Factor Movements and International Business > F22 - International Migration; N - Economic History > N1 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics ; Industrial Structure ; Growth ; Fluctuations > N15 - Asia including Middle East; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor

References

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Parameswaran M (2009) Financial Crisis and the Kerala Economy, Working paper no: 441, Centre for Development Studies, Kerala