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Labor Mobility and Economic Integration

Below is a visualization of the migration patterns across the Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN). [ASEAN is a grouping of 10 countries including Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam]. The objective of the investigation is to illustrate the extent to which economic integration could be challenging given the different economic weights of its members. ASEAN members range from the poorest Cambodia with current per capita GDP of $1,090 to wealthy Singapore at over $56,000 as of 2014. One of the core pillars of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), inked in KL in December 2015, is mobility of skilled labor across the region. The interactive figure below illustrates migration patterns as of 2013 (using data from the UN Population Division). The biggest sender countries, as of 2013 were Indonesia and Malaysia, which had over 1.4 million and over 800 thousand of its citizens living in other ASEAN countries, respectively. Upper middle income Malaysia and High income Singapore were the favored destinations, receiving 1.64 million and 940,000 ASEAN citizens, respectively. The skill level of these immigrants is hard to determine but local debate in countries like Malaysia suggests an overwhelming number of them are of low skills as evinced by their occupations (maids, plantation, and construction workers).

Migration Patterns: Ranked by Sender Country, 2013


Migration Patterns Ranked by Receiving Country, 2013

Source: United Nations Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs
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