Temporary Measures : Migrant Workers and the Developmental State in the Philippines and South Korea

Temporary Measures explores the connection between labor migration and economic development by comparing the experiences of South Korea and the Philippines with contract labor migration. Suzy K. Lee traces the ways the governments of these countries developed policies to promote this type of migration, beginning in the middle of the 20th century. She argues that these policies had a significant impact on the economic trajectories of both countries, affecting not only the lives of the migrant workers who were "exported," but the countries'' prospects for industrialization and development.

Migration is a common response to economic crisis. Not only by individuals, who can choose to seek opportunities abroad, but also by states, which sometimes induce those individual choices by adopting policies that facilitate and promote migration. What does it mean for a country when this happens? What impact, if any, does migration have on the originating crisis? And what happens when the crisis ends? Temporary Measures examines these questions through the experiences of South Korea and the Philippines, two countries where labor export was pursued as a path out of chronic underdevelopment and economic crises. In South Korea, labor export became a crucial link in an export-led industrialization push that not only stabilized but so transformed the Korean economy that within two decades, the country became a net importer of migrant labor. The Philippines also experienced an economic transformation as a result of labor export, but in a way that generated a dependence on migration and migrant remittances. This book, by tracing the history of these two countries'' labor export programs, offers explanations for why and how they diverged so dramatically. It describes the multiple pathways through which migration can serve national development projects and the conditions under which different models succeed or fail.