Debt, precarity and gender

Male and female temporary labour migrants in Singapore

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3628868
AutoresMaria Platt (National University of Singapore, autor de correspondencia), Grace Baey (National University of Singapore), B S A Yeoh (0000-0002-0240-3175, National University of Singapore), Choon Yen Khoo (0000-0002-9538-7118, National University of Singapore), Theodora Lam (0000-0003-0342-5808, National University of Singapore)
Año2017
Volumen43
Número1
Páginas119-136
Fecha de publicación2017-01-02
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaNew Community (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0047-9586 • E-ISSN: 1469-9451
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1369183x.2016.1218756
OpenAlexW2515768830
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas53
Referencias citadas33

As one of Asia’s key hubs for transient workers, Singapore’s migration regime creates particularly gendered streams of labour, especially among lower skilled occupations, as is apparent in two key sectors – domestic work and construction work. Drawing on surveys with Bangladeshi construction workers and Indonesian domestic workers based in Singapore, as well as in-depth interviews with each group, this paper examines gendered issues of temporary labour migration, precarity and risk, as they occur against a backdrop of migrant indebtedness. In this paper, we argue that migrant indebtedness occurs along a spectrum that ranges from less visible, or what we call ‘silently’ incurred forms of debt, through to more ‘resonant’ types of debt that are acquired upfront and thus more readily quantifiable. Using this spectrum of migrant indebtedness, we aim to complicate debates about debt-financed migration by underscoring the ways in which notions of debt and unfreedom can be imbricated with both constraints and opportunities for migrants’ agency

Business · Debt · Demographic economics · Economic growth · Economics · Household debt · Indonesian · Labour economics · Migrant workers · Political science · Precarity · Sociology · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Gender Studies · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Finance