Citizenship, Entitlement, and Labor Migration in Brunei

• In Event: Formation of Neo-Plural Societies as Emerging Migration Regimes

Abstract

Employment of short-term migrant workers to supplement the shortage of labor force is becoming a common strategy in many countries in Asia, particularly in rapidly growing and demographically ageing societies. This is one of the important characteristics of neo-plural societies, which shows a significant departure from European countries. Even with the high GDP and welfare provision based on extensive petroleum and natural gas, Brunei has recruited hundreds of thousands of foreign workers.

Currently 140,000 foreign workers stay in the country, which is about one-third of the total population. However, this is very different from other growing Asian developed societies, such as Singapore and Hong Kong, in that Brunei scores low in the labor force participation rate of women despite being demographically young and the constant hiring of foreign domestic workers. Thus, the case of Brunei looks very different from other Asian countries such as Singapore and Hong Kong. Even though foreigners are not provided freedom of settlement, the satisfaction level of foreign residents is quite high in certain condition.

Author

• Wako Asato, Kyoto University