Governing Migration, Producing Skills: Emigration and Education in the Philippines

This article examines skill as an integral yet understudied aspect of emigration governance. To date, migration studies have mainly focused on how the demand for migrant skills drive people's movements across borders, shaping the conditions for entry into popular destinations in the West. In contrast, less is known as to how skills also shape the way governments manage emigration, pushing would-be migrants to acquire certain capacities well before they leave their countries of origin. Drawing from the case of the Philippines, this article discusses how state agencies have used skills training to dominate specific markets for migrant professionals and demand higher wages for Filipino workers abroad. Yet, this emphasis on skilling has also worsened existing inequalities within the country, creating social problems that state officials are unable to fully address and control. We argue that such issues stem from the private schools and training companies who dominate skills provision for aspiring migrants. Such actors remain largely overlooked in current scholarship, despite their increasing influence on workers’ migration trajectories. This paper highlights the challenges of producing workers for labor markets beyond borders, as well as its implications on how we understand migration governance as a whole.