The Perception of Myanmar Development on its Return Migrants: Implications for Burmese Migrants in Thailand

Mya Mya Thet () and Piriya Pholphirul ()
Additional contact information
Mya Mya Thet: Ministry of Labour, Employment, and Social Security
Piriya Pholphirul: National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA) and International College of National Institute of Development Administration (ICO NIDA)

Journal of International Migration and Integration, 2016, vol. 17, issue 4, No 2, 995-1014

Abstract: Abstract Recent development in Myanmar has created stronger pull factors on emigrant Burmese workers to return to their motherland. Using a survey of 433 Burmese migrants in Thailand as a case study, this paper examines the impact of Myanmar’s development on the probability of the return of Burmese migrants to Myanmar from Thailand. Development factors such as more foreign direct investment, deregulation, and improvement of public services will encourage Burmese migrant workers to return home. Additionally, in terms of economic development, better job opportunities and political stability are also major pull factors for return migration. The main policy implication of these findings is that the chances that Burmese migrant workers will return home are high if investment opportunities followed by job availability and adequate wages can be found in Myanmar. Myanmar and Thailand should implement education programs set up by the Thai government and facilitate Burmese migrants’ children’s access to these programs as well as protecting migrants’ rights during the period of structural adjustment in Thailand.

Keywords: Development of Myanmar; Burmese migration in Thailand; Return migration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12134-015-0446-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:joimai:v:17:y:2016:i:4:d:10.1007_s12134-015-0446-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer ... tudies/journal/12134

DOI: 10.1007/s12134-015-0446-9

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Migration and Integration is currently edited by Lori Wilkinson

More articles in Journal of International Migration and Integration from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().