Circular Migration: A Triple Win or a Dead End
- Document number
- 2774
- Date
- 2011
- Title
- Circular Migration: A Triple Win or a Dead End
- Author/publisher
- Piyasiri Wickramasekara
- Availability
- View/save PDF version of this document
- Document type(s)
- Research/Study/Analysis,
- Keywords
- The Global Union Research Network (GURN), DISCUSSION PAPER No. 15
- Summary
- The study finds that in recent discussions the benefits of circular migration have been highly exaggerated. There is little evidence to support that circular migration represents the natural preferences of most migrants. It is difficult to see migrant workers as winners in circular schemes since they have limited choice regarding the jobs, change of employers, timing of return, and family unification, among others. Countries of origin are hardly winners either, given the small quotas of legal migration opportunities provided, if any, and the large concessions they have to make to gain such quotas as under European Union mobility partnerships. The current model seems to make the destination countries winners in providing them ‘labour without people', or circular migrants with ill-defined rights, making it easier for employers to exploit workers, and engage in flexible hiring and firing, in line with economic and business conditions, and short term savings in integration costs.
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