International Labor Migration Foreign Workers and Public Policy

Studies of international labour migration typically assume that foreign labour is a universal feature of wealthy economies. However, some wealthy societies do not import workers on a large scale, despite employers' pressures. Using Israel and Japan as empirical cases, this comparative-historical work investigates why some governments allow employers relatively free access to foreign labour, while others require alternative responses to labour shortages.

David Bartram teaches in Sociology at the University of Reading.