Arbeitsmigration in Singapur. Aktuelle Literatur und Perspektiven der Forschung

Abstract

With some 450,000 foreigners among its labour force the city-state of Singapore is one of the most important labour importers in Southeast Asia today. Singapore's foreign labour force is characterised by a bi-polar structure with foreign workers only in the highest and the lowest strata of the labour market. This structure coincides with a migration policy that is highly restrictive with regard to the recruitment of foreign low-skilled workers while at the same time favouring the inflow of foreign experts. This paper examines the current state of the scientific debate on the issue of labour migration in Singapore and points to a number of questions still to be discussed within this field of research. Changing labour migration flows have led to a series of research papers focussing on topics such as the living and working conditions of female migrant workers in Singapore and the question of citizenship and transnationalism. But there is still a lack of research on issues such as the living and working conditions of the large number of foreign construction workers or the connection between the influx of a large number of foreign professionals and the creation of more and more low-end jobs for foreign workers in the service sector within the Global City of Singapore.