Abstract
This book is relevant because it offers ideas on how social policy can be formulated in light of the rapid increase in immigrant labor globally. As workers migrate to European countries, the employment risks they face are an important issue today. The traditional social policy approach that the state should provide social protection for workers is becoming less effective. Today, state actors, companies, non-profit organizations, communities and households are able to mitigate the risks faced in an increasingly dynamic world. This book critically answers the question of how migrant workers can deal with risks in the workplace, whether they have to provide for themselves because they are not born in the country where they work while social protection by the state is limited to territory.
At the beginning of the book, it recommends four logics on which rights can be based: the logic of citizenship, the logic of personhood/humanity, the logic of the market, and the logic of community. It then formulates a new set of welfare rules called hybrid transnational social protection (HTSP). Hybrid transnational social protection is the policies, programs, people, organizations and institutions that provide for and protect individual migrants and their families across borders. There are 6 sections in this book. The first section deals with “children and families.” childhood experiences, childcare, and migrant family life. In addition, children who migrate with their parents also have their own risks if something bad happens to their parents.
The second section focuses on “education.” Stories of teachers and students working and studying abroad for better job opportunities and education are a fact of life today. The globalization of education means that social protection issues must adapt. This book helps us to analyze that transnational migration in education is unconsciously encouraged through the exchange of teachers and students. Consequently, education affects international migration and international migration affects education itself.
The third section is related to “labor.” The authors find that in traditional social protection, labor protection is still limited to territorial and national areas, which has led to inequality for some time. It has been replaced by capital flows and labor markets, but these resources are still not catching up. In this chapter the author examines and analyses how the rights of workers or teachers as professionals in the hybridization of worker protection at the global level.
The fourth section explores “health.” The health sector has become the most transnational and hybrid sector as there has been a globalization of healthcare. Analyzing the emergence of private, fee-for-service hospitals further exposes the resource disparities of individual workers. The authors divide into 6 important institutions: Mobile medical professionals, medical institutions operating transnationally, individuals accessing healthcare through remittances, healthcare provision for undocumented migrants, medical tourism and travel, and global governance of healthcare in the context of international migration.
The fifth section discusses “care for parents and the elderly.” This section highlights how older people living as immigrants can access social protection, such as old-age benefits, in their destination countries. The discussion focuses on four groups: international retired migrants, parents whose children have migrated abroad, elderly migrants returning to their home countries and migrant elderly care workers.
The final section concludes that in understanding transnational social policy, traditional state-centered approaches are not very useful. Displacement and migration occur massively on a global level, so social protection by the state is often limited to national and territorial boundaries. Therefore, this book provides a new idea of social protection that can be accessed by migrants globally, especially in accessing education, health, labor protection and the elderly with the concept of HTSP.
On the whole, the authors use the concept of resource environment and sufficient empirical data to show hybrid transnational social protection regimes in describing the increasingly complex phenomenon of migrant workers. This book is suitable for social policy analysts, social workers, academics, company owners, and policy makers themselves. The book is particularly useful for its depth of content; reflective discussion questions; a very useful, up-to-date and comprehensive reference list; and a number of well-developed case studies that illustrate the book's content. However, there is a need to discuss how immigrants as laborers and professionals receive their social rights from their home countries.
