Elisabetta Gentile (Ed), Skilled Labour Mobility and Migration: Challenges and Opportunities for ASEAN Economic Community

The last four decades have witnessed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) maintain an economic growth above the global average. The countries have expanded over five per cent annually, leading to rise of a wealthy urbancentric middle class with a higher willingness to pay for quality goods and services. This has fuelled up both intraand cross-country migration where workers from rural and less developed areas look for opportunities in cities or developed countries. Improved standards of living leading to demographic changes as well as technological advances have the potential to unsettle the labour market, creating a demand for highly specialised skills. It is observed that most of the ASEAN countries are reporting the challenges of shortage of skilled labours. Skilled labour mobility is the need of the ASEAN countries to cope up with the shortages and knowledge transfers across borders. It is also crucial to boost productivity and maintain an economic growth where choices from a broader talent pool of a scare resource is made possible through appropriate matchmaking. In this context, the book1 on skilled labour mobility and migration in the ASEAN context revolves around four core areas of labour mobility in the ASEAN region: (i) its economic impact, (ii) case studies, (iii) policies and mechanisms and (iv) the impact of higher education. It starts by looking into the nature and trend of skill labour migration in the region along with theoretical underpinnings for the phenomenon. It then assesses an economy-wide effect of skilled labour flows, followed by a sectoral review of the labour flows and indicative policies for governments in the ASEAN region. The chapter by Kikkawa and Suan presents the latest trends and patterns of the mobility of people across ASEAN. It hints that the tangible benefits of facilitating labour mobility is low in the ASEAN region and is limited to individual countries. The chapter predicts that sectors such as agriculture, fisheries, construction, care giving and household work are expected to rise globally, and ASEAN countries need to focus on promoting labour mobility in these sectors. Closely linked to this chapter, the next chapter by Gentile interprets the dynamics of Asian labour migration through the lens of existing literature on migration. The chapter indicates two theoretical models to establish the lower flow of migration of skilled labour within the ASEAN region. The author points out to the Kremer O-ring theory (1983), which shows that skilled workers from ASEAN prefer to migrate outside the region even with similar individual skills, since they will be far more productive (implying a higher return) once matched up with the skilled labour force of the host country. Similarly, Grogger and Hanson (2011) postulate that