Migrant Workers in the Gray Zone: Reproductive Rights and Family Formation in South Korea

• In Event: 30421 - Section on Global and Transnational Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 1. Women on the Global Margins

Abstract

This paper examines the experiences of Cambodian migrant workers who migrate to South Korea through the Employment Permit System (hereafter, EPS), a temporary labor migration program that puts nuanced restraints on these workers’ reproductive rights and the right to family formation. As a result of this odd mix of regulations, migrant workers are left in the gray zone where family formation and pregnancy are neither prohibited nor legalized. Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews collected in Cambodia and South Korea between 2018 and 2023, this paper explores how the absence of these rights creates conflicts between employers and migrant workers. The findings reveal how prospective workers from Cambodia experience pregnancy discrimination, which disqualifies them from entering South Korea. For those Cambodians permitted to work in South Korea, the absence of family-related rights leads to many employers monitoring migrant workers’ daily lives or terminating their employment due to spousal visits or pregnancy. After childbirth, migrant women are left with limited choices: to send their babies back to Cambodia while continuing to work in South Korea, or to return to Cambodia permanently with their babies. This study highlights some of the peculiarities related to documentation; namely, it shows a stark contrast by which undocumented workers, unlike documented workers who are tied to their workplace, frequently live and work with their families, thereby exercising the right to family formation—a right that is not guaranteed to documented workers. Therefore, this study reveals how the limited rights and protections of migrant workers create legal ambiguity, in which migrant workers with legal status struggle with exercising restricted rights, whereas undocumented workers find alternative negotiation strategies for pregnancy, childbirth, and family formation.

Author

• Choon Hee Woo, University of Massachusetts-Amherst