Migrants and the labour process

Labour-related migration has long been a major form of mobility in low-income countries. With the commercialisation of agriculture, the growth of wage labour and the tendency for urban-industrial growth to exceed rural-agricultural growth, population mobility has increased enormously. Migration facilitates the concentration of the work force, the development of the detailed and social division of labour, and the development of a domestic market for consumption and production goods ( Standing, 1981a ). And there is evidence that migrants have provided a vital source of labour for emerging industries and have enabled employers to make major changes in productive techniques. In many instances migrants have constituted a “floating” labour reserve prepared to take jobs that would not be taken by local workers and prepared to work for lower wages and perform relatively arduous jobs that have the lowest status, security and opportunity for socio-economic mobility.