The EconomistNovember 16th 2019 Special reportMigration 72 vices on offer, from cheaper dry-cleaning to spicier meals.
For the migrants themselves, the biggest cost of moving is often
emotional. Leaving home means leaving behind family, friends
and one’s own culture. For Listi, there is an extra cost. In Singapore
foreigners who make more than S$6,000 a month are allowed to
bring their families, but low-paid workers like her are not.
So eager is the government to prevent maids from putting
down roots or burdening public services that they are given regu-
lar health checks and, if found to be pregnant, sent home to give
birth. Listi’s two children are back in Indonesia with relatives. “I
used to cry every day because I missed my kids so much,” she says.
“But now we use WhatsApp video to call a few times a week. Having
connectivity makes it very different working overseas.”
Others have it worse. Tati, another Indonesian maid, used to
support a jobless husband with the wages she earned in the Gulf.
When she returned for a visit, she discovered that he had not only
found another woman but also sold their family home without her
permission. “He says he spent the money on the kid. But I don’t be-
lieve it,” fumes Tati. She dumped him.
I like the island Manhattan
The most obvious benefits for low-skilled economic migrants are,
unsurprisingly, economic. When they move from a poor country
to a rich one, their wages swiftly become a lot like those of similar-
ly skilled workers in the place they have moved to, and nothing like
those of their place of origin. Natural experiments show that this is
not just because the kind of people who migrate are more ambi-
tious. A study of Tongans who entered a random lottery to work in
New Zealand found that those who won visas and moved earned
nearly 300% more than those who did not—in the first year.
Migrants typically share their gains with their families back
home. Remittances to low- and middle-income countries reached
a record high of $529bn in 2018, up nearly 10% from the previous
year. In 2019 the World Bank predicts that remittances will be the
largest source of external financing for such countries. They are al-
ready three times greater than foreign aid. And unlike donor
funds, they tend to flow directly to the intended recipients, rather
than being squandered or embezzled by corrupt officials.
For many countries they are a lifeline. Remittances are more
than 10% of gdpin 28 countries, and even higher in Tonga (39%),
Haiti (34%) and Tajikistan (30%). Remittance flows are more reli-
able than foreign investment. Indeed, they are helpfully counter-
cyclical. When a crisis erupts, foreign investors flee. But migrants
feel doubly compelled to help their relatives back home.
Listi’s family sometimes went hungry before she went to Singa-
pore. Now, thanks partly to the money she sends home, they are
thriving. They have built a neat new home in Bumiayu, with a shop
attached to the front selling noodles, spices, cigarettes, soap and
other household goods. Visitors are treated to a heaped assortment
of cakes made of rice, palm sugar and coconut flakes. As your cor-
respondent is interviewing her siblings, Listi makes a video call
from 1,100km away to chat with her eight-year-old son, and make
sure he is doing his homework.
For years Listi has paid the school fees
for her 17-year-old sister Wanaziah, and
helped other relatives. As soon as she turns
18, Wanaziah plans to migrate, too. She
wants to work in an electronics factory in
Japan. She has heard it is a prosperous,
punctual, disciplined place. She likes the
sound of that, though to her traditional
Muslim ears the Japanese attitude to sex
sounds frighteningly libertine. She worries
about being lonely, but takes comfort in the
fact that several of her schoolmates are alsoplanning to go to Japan. She wants to work abroad for long enough
to buy some land. Then she will come home and get married.
Some migrants are exploited. Those who move illegally are es-
pecially vulnerable, since they often hire criminals to help them
cross borders. Many Africans trying to reach Europe pass through
Libya, because it is too lawless to stop them. Unfortunately, it is
also too lawless to protect them from abuse. “I was jailed for six
months in Libya for no reason,” says Ali, a Gabonese migrant now
in Italy. “And the guards beat me with a metal pipe.” Other migrants
have been kidnapped in Libya and auctioned to farmers as slaves.
Domestic workers everywhere are vulnerable, since private
homes are difficult places for labour inspectors to access. Some
maids’ employers take their passports, fail to pay them agreed
wages and even beat or rape them. But such things happen in their
home countries, too. Indeed, the countries where forced labour is
most common are the ones migrants strive hardest to leave.
Migrants have found many ways to reduce the likelihood of be-
ing victimised. The most important is the mobile phone, which
lets them swap information with friends who have already made
the journey. In Bumiayu everyone knows how Listi was cheated
when she first ventured abroad. But that is rare now, her family
agree. Well-regulated local agencies place people in legal jobs
overseas, and help with paperwork. The Indonesian embassy in
Singapore circulates numbers for migrants to call if they are in
danger. People have learned from Listi’s example. Idrus has a word
for his pioneering sister. She is a pahlawan—a heroic warrior. 7I’d rather be a nanny in SingaporeRemittances to
low- and middle-
income countries
are three times
greater than
foreign aid