International population mobility in East Asia

This chapter is focussed on the movements associated with the ASEAN+3 economies and on longer term mobility. Between 1990 and 2015, the stock of migrants in these economies more than doubled, rising from 6.8m to 17.4m. Economies with high shares of migrants to total population are Macao, Singapore, Hong Kong and Brunei. Thailand has shown the largest growth over this period, to become the largest country of destination. Malaysia and Singapore also showed large increases and these three plus Japan and Hong Kong make up the top countries of destinations. The largest sending countries are China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Myanmar and Viet Nam. Countries with the largest remittance flows are India, China and the Philippines. Ananta and Arifin highlight the drivers of changes in patterns of migration, and that current sending countries can switch to become receiving countries. The patterns of migration are relatively intense in the region but even so the region has a relatively global orientation in its migrant flows. The drivers of migration include factors associated with various stages of development and demographic transition as well as those related to technological change. East Asia will continue to be both a sending and receiving region, but the movement of people might shift more towards mobility (shorter term movements) than migration. In terms of the impact of migration, it is no longer a one-way process, as migrants may reside in a number of countries and may also return home. The application of policy measures to migration, including mutual recognition agreements which are relevant for skilled migrants is discussed. With respect to MRAs in ASEAN, there is more progress for tourism professionals, some progress for accounting, architecture and engineering and less progress in fields related to health services.