Temporary labour migration and underdevelopment in Sri Lanka: the limits of remittance capital

ABSTRACT

Sri Lanka’s long history of temporary labour migration to West Asia began amidst economic upheaval in 1977 and burgeoned during decades marred by macroeconomic volatility and ethnic conflict. Today, the remittances sent by migrant domestic workers and low-waged manual labourers in the Gulf are vital to the subsistence of poor households in marginalised communities and constitute the country’s largest source of foreign exchange earnings. Prominent policymaking frameworks purport that temporary labour migration of this kind should produce a ‘triple win’ outcome, wherein remittance transfers catalyse economic development for migrant households and their countries of origin. Yet, while labour-receiving economies unequivocally benefit from exploiting reserve armies of labour and care, the developmental impact of inbound remittance flows remains under-theorised. This article advances a critique of how remittance capital functions at household, national and global scales to demonstrate how temporary labour migration has limited Sri Lanka to a precariously uneven and remittance-dependent model of development. A profound contradiction emerges where uneven development ‘pushes’ vulnerable populations into foreign employment, only for their remittances to sustain exclusionary development spending that intensifies the need to migrate.

KEYWORDS:

• Remittances
• temporary labour migration
• uneven development
• migration-development
• Sri Lanka

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. This typically applies only to male migrant workers; female domestic workers ordinarily receive board at no additional expense.

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Notes on contributors

Matt Withers

Matt Withers is a research fellow at Macquarie University. His research is concerned with the developmental implications of temporary labour migration and remittances, both in Sri Lanka (where his PhD fieldwork was conducted), and throughout the Asia-Pacific region. His work adopts a multiscalar approach to migration dynamics and draws attention to local geographies and institutions as key sites of analysis through which to reconcile historical-structures with diverse and contextually-specific experiences of development and underdevelopment. His current research looks at how temporary labour migration disrupts work and care activities within migrant households, and calls for a ‘decent care’ agenda to recognise and redistribute the onus of unpaid care work overwhelmingly borne by women.