Regulating Labor Migrations in Global Production Network: Comparing Vietnamese and Malaysian Electronics Sector

Since the early 200s, development organizations have proposed integration into global value chains as a viable strategy for economic development at the country level. Despite mixed findings regarding its effectiveness, several countries in the Global South have followed this strategy, hoping to achieve both economic and social upgrading (Barrientos et al., 2011). This paper aims at assessing the outcome of such integration comparing the Vietnamese and Malaysian experiences in the electronics sectors and focusing on the experience of workers in the sector in the two countries. Both countries have integrated in the electronics Global Production Network through increasing inflows of Foreign Direct Investments, with an abundant supply of migrant labor representing a crucial pull factor for foreign capital. Empirically, the work uses both quantitative and qualitative data, confronting the dynamic trends in wages with information on working conditions and workers’ experiences gathered through fieldwork in-depth interviews in Malaysia and in the Red River Delta area in Vietnam. It is argued that both the international agreements on migrant workers for Malaysia and the Ho Khau system in the Vietnamese case represent an instrument to manage the labor supply in export-oriented industries and to externalize the social reproduction of labor to countries of origin (in the Malaysian case) and to rural areas (in the Vietnamese one). In doing so, both countries are able to commodify these specific segments of the workforce and to ease the financial burden on the welfare system.

References:

Barrientos, S., Gereffi, G., & Rossi, A. (2011). Economic and social upgrading in global production networks: A new paradigm for a changing world. International Labour Review, 150(3‐4), 319-340.