Development, Urbanization, Migration, and Quality of Life - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 115

This flow might involve several generations of migrants
who have established communities ready to absorb new
ones. This creates ethnic enclaves or foreign-born commu-
nities in both cities and rural areas. Chain migrations typi-
cally involve relatives and friends and can be temporary or
permanent, internal or international in nature.
Sometimes chain migration is specific to an occupa-
tional group. For instance, most construction workers in
New Delhi in the north of India come from the state of
Orissa in the east of India or from Rajasthan in the north-
west. Newspaper sellers come from the state of Tamil
Nadu in the south.
Coastal regions are growing faster than interior re-
gions. In 1998, 60 percent of Asians lived within 250
miles (400 km) of the coast despite the continent' s vast
land mass. More than 75 percent of Japanese live along or
near a coast. In fact, the government has declared 47 percent
of the country as “depopulated” and has devised pro-
grams to encourage migration to the interior. Sixty
percent of China' s population lives near the coast. The
Philippines has Asia' s second longest coastline after
Indonesia, and more than half of all Filipinos live within
a day' s walk of the coast.
Coastal development is produced by a variety of
processes such as early urban patterns created by pre-
colonial and colonial powers. Increased global interac-
tion fostered the role of international trade in the
development of ports and infrastructural linkages to hin-
terlands. Modern globalization has seen the intensifica-
tion of integration of coastal cities into the world system
of interchange.
India is the single exception to this phenomenon
because a succession of rulers throughout history con-
structed cities in various regions of the interior. “Old”
Delhi dates back to about 300 BC, while “New” Delhi
was planned by the British in the twentieth century .
Coastal cities such as Mumbai and Chennai, which re-
main magnets for migration, were actually created by the
British during the colonial period. Environmental and
other problems in coastal cities have led Indian planners
to focus development in numerous interior cities such as
Hyderabad and Bangalore. Moreover, there are serious
efforts to clean up Delhi.

Many are recruited by foreign governments or employ-
ment agencies. For example, thousands of Chinese came
to work in American and Canadian mining enterprises or
railroad construction in the nineteenth century . “China-
towns” are ubiquitous around the globe. Even Paris has
two Chinatowns. One is populated by ethnic Chinese
refugees who escaped from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia
in the 1970s.
Y ou can find Indian communities in almost every
country . Great Britain is home to more than a million
Indians. Durban, South Africa, has the largest Indian
population in sub-Saharan Africa. One of the largest
foreign-born populations in North America, Europe, and
Australia is Indian.
Indian immigration to Canada and the United States
began in the nineteenth century . Changes in immigration
policies after World War II generated subsequent waves of
Indian immigrants. The most recent and largest migration
wave has been in the 1990s and 2000s fueled by the IT rev-
olution. While early migrants took jobs such as taxi driv-
ers, laborers, or small business owners, the recent wave has
lodged itself in high-tech industries, academic and medical
professions. There are more than 700,000 East Indians
living in Canada and 2.7 million in the United States.
While the majority of international migrants are
young males, significant numbers of women also migrate
to other countries to work in global cities (Figure 4-14).
Each year, some 100,000 women leave Asia' s newly
developing countries to work in domestic service, hotels,
or factories in the continent' s older industrial economies.
Also, about 50,000 Thai women and Filipinas leave their
homes (voluntarily or forcibly) to work in the sex and
entertainment industries in Japan and South Korea.
Many women go to Middle Eastern countries. In
2003, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) granted an aver-
age of 300 visas a day to Southeast Asian women to meet
their demand for domestics. The average UAE household
hires three. Middle Eastern countries are also important
destinations for an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 teachers
from India, Sri Lanka, South Korea, and the Philippines.
The international migration of nurses, nannies, maids,
and sex workers, especially from Sri Lanka and the Philip-
pines, is outstanding in scope. Sri Lankans and Filipinas
are in great demand, with thousands working as maids and
nannies in places such as Hong Kong, Singapore, and cities
in the Middle East. Unfortunately , many are mistreated and
some are held in virtual slavery by their employers.
Qualified nurses are in great demand in the United
States and elsewhere in the developed world. In 2009,
there were 20,000 nursing jobs available for Filipinas in
Saudi Arabia. Recruitment of nurses from developing

INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION PATTERNS
Asians have long comprised significant migration
streams to other parts of the world. T Today, , it is the pri-
mary source of international labor migration . Most of
this migration is voluntary—people seeking jobs outside
their home country where unemployment is rampant.