Securitising, Economising and Humanising Immigration: The Case of the Employment Permit System in South Korea

Abstract

Immigration poses a dilemma for host states. Embracing international migrants contributes to economic prosperity and enhances the national reputation as a guardian of human rights, while simultaneously triggering security concerns. How can a migrant-receiving state address this dilemma? Using the case of the Employment Permit System (EPS) enacted in South Korea in 2003, which was the first law to protect the basic rights of foreign workers, this paper examines how a nation-state optimises its immigration policies to at the same time satisfy the competing demands of security, economic prosperity and human rights. We argue that the Korean government’s efforts to respond simultaneously to contradictory requirements have resulted in a decoupled policy structure in which gaps have been maintained between incorporating global norms of human rights and pursuing national interests such as economic growth and national security.

Keywords:

• South Korea
• migrant workers
• migration
• Employment Permit System
• humanisation
• securitisation
• economisation
• human rights

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions for improving the manuscript.

Notes

1. We use the Revised Romanisation of Korean (RRK) system for Korean terms and names except for those that are in general use, such as the names of former Korean presidents (e.g. Roh Tae Woo, Roh Moo Hyun etc.). Similarly, if authors of particular references romanise their names in ways that do not comply with RRK, we use their preferred renderings.

2. The official statistics from the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2015 indicate that there are 7,184,872 overseas Koreans (jaeoedongpo). Data are available at http://www.mofa.go.kr/travel/overseascitizen/index.jsp?menu=m_10_40, accessed 30 December 2015.

3. Other large groups of migrants include ethnic Koreans with foreign nationalities (235,953), marriage immigrants (150,865) and international students (81,847).