Selective Migration Policy and the Stratification of Labor Migration: Disparities in the Opportunities for Indonesian Migrant Workers.
The characteristics of workers in main destination countries were classified into four categories: (1) Japan and South Korea, (2) Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, (3) Italy and Turkey, and (4) Malaysia. These categories correspond to different migration schemes: (1) Government-to-government (G-G) and Individual, (2) Private-to-private (P-P), (3) P-P in government special economic zones, and (4) P-P with government quality monitoring. We argue that these patterns reflect Indonesia's strategic response to diverse labor market demands and regulatory environments in Global North and advanced Asian economies.
Our main focus is on how Indonesian migration policy, influenced by both domestic goals and Global North standards, shapes the role of sending agencies and the formation of specific migration routes. We demonstrate that the government's regulatory framework, which often incorporates elements from Global North practices (e.g., skills certification systems aligned with Japanese standards), creates a diverse business environment for sending agencies, resulting in unique migration patterns.
Building on de Haas's (2019) observation of migration policy shifting from quantitative management to qualitative selection, we examine how this shift, partly driven by Global North priorities, creates unequal opportunities among potential migrant workers in Indonesia. We extend this argument to explore the impact of selective migration policies on the development of sending country routes and how these biased routes contribute to the inequality of labor migration opportunities.