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Social Aspects of International Labour Migration in the ESCAP Region: [ST/ESCAP/2117] 2001
The discussion in this paper focuses on the international movement of people among the countries of the ESCAP region. Equally, however, the social policy issues raised apply to internal migration within these countries and particularly to rural-to-urban migration. In effect, it matters little if a migrant returns to his or her village from the capital city or from a foreign country. In practice, migrants from overseas will almost certainly have accumulated more capital and have sent back greater amounts of remittances. The length of time that families are separated may not be so long in the case of internal migrants, and it will be easier for family members to join the principal migrants at a destination. Nevertheless, many of the issues are similar and it would be invidious to establish programmes to assist international migrants while ignoring the needs of internal migrants. This particularly applies to programmes that are designed to reincorporate return migrants. Social policies of special concern will apply to areas of pronounced out-migration (to internal as well as overseas destinations) that contribute to the ageing of rural populations. Limited at present to areas in Japan and the Republic of Korea, this issue will become of greater concern more widely in the region early in this century.