The economic crisis and Asia’s migrant worker population

In a recent article published in the International Herald Tribune, Thomas Fuller looks at the global economic crisis and its impact on the migrant worker population of South East Asia. In response to the economic downturn, many of those who had left the countryside for jobs in the cities are now returning to their families in rural villages to resume their farming lifestyle. While the loss of city-generated income on a single farming household may be grave, the long-term impact of this migration might well be a positive one. After years of hearing about globalization, a new term being tossed around is “deglobalization,” an economic and social shift hinted at in this article. As ex-workers seek to replace their lost income and dispel their boredom, they may well make use of the skills they learned in the city to promote economic development in their own villages. The same entrepreneurial spirit that drove people out of the countryside may now impel them to create opportunities at home, independent of what the urban economy once offered. Thanks to the economic downturn, the potential for small-scale, sustainable growth in local economies is great. The true effects of the slowdown, however, will depend on its duration: the longer it lasts, the more assuredly “deglobalization” will occur, thus impacting Asia’s rural socio-economic development.