Gendered career-choices of transnational migrants

Korea has turned into labor importing country in the late 1980’s as the result of dynamic economic development throughout the 1970-80’s. The national administration, however, was cautious about whom to attract as labor force for keeping the pace of the ever-growing economy. The special status was given to the overseas Koreans, who could fill the labor gap in the manufacturing, agriculture and contruction site jobs. Restrained by the so called ethnic citizenship and hierarchical nationhood , as well as general public concern on ethnic homogeneity, the South Korean government called for diaspora Koreans from China (chosŏnjok) and post-soviet Republics (koryo-saram) as labor migrants to their old and long-forgotten historical “motherland”. The latter ones are in the focus of the proposed research topic. The case of overseas Koreans’ labor migration to Korea, and particularly koryo-saram, lies in the intersection between transnational labor migration and ethnic diaspora migration, which makes the motivation behind moving and incorporation processes exceptionally complex. This PhD dissertation takes a close look on koryo-saram, as transnational labor migrants in South Korea and particularly at the change of career path in the context of inequalities they face. In the proposed PhD project, the main question is why some labor migrants change the trajectories of career-paths from 3D (dirty, demanding, demeaning) semi-compliant work to the higher status jobs or self-employment. Specifically, what is the role of heterogeneities such as transnationality, age, gender, ethnicity, class as well as assemblages of social protection (formal and informal), and agency in the decision-making of career-path development of labor migrants? The novelty of this case study is in applying transnational social protection lens and intersectionality approach on one the East Asian contexts, therefore changing the euro-centrism of the transnational studies on migration and welfare that exist by far.