The UP Asian Center will be holding the onsite lecture and research presentation "Autocratic Transit States Under Pressure: Nurse Migration Governance in Singapore and the UAE During and After Covid-19" on 16 February 2026, 3:00 - 5:00 PM, PST (GMT+8), at the Japan Hall, UP Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman. The event is free and open to the public. Snacks will be served. Online pre-registration is recommended due to limited seating.
ABOUT THE LECTURE
The global demand for nurses has intensified in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, reshaping migration pathways across the Global South and the Global North. Autocratic transit states such as Singapore and the United Arab Emirates have emerged as critical hubs for stepwise migrant nurses, balancing domestic healthcare needs with global labor market pressures. However, how these states govern nurse migration during periods of global crisis remains underexplored in public and academic discourse.
This lecture addresses this gap by examining how recent global disruptions have transformed nurse migration governance in autocratic transit states, highlighting shifts in policy priorities, state control, and migrant retention strategies during and after the pandemic.
The lecture also aims to explain how global crises reshape labor migration governance in autocratic transit states by presenting a comparative analysis of nurse migration policies in Singapore and the United Arab Emirates before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. It introduces a three-stage analytical framework—restrictive, transformative, and strategic—to examine crisis-driven policy change and shifting state leverage over migrant labor. Through a focus on stepwise migration within the global nursing labor market, the lecture encourages critical discussion on autocratic governance, migrant retention and non-exit strategies, and the broader implications of migration governance for migrant workers, healthcare systems, and global labor mobility.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
MARIA REINARUTH D. CARLOS, Ph.D.
Ryokoku University, Kyoto, Japan
Maria Reinaruth D. Carlos is a Professor at the Graduate School and Faculty of International Studies of Ryukoku University in Kyoto, Japan. She specializes and has published articles, both in Japanese and English, on the topics of Filipino nurse migration, post-retirement residential preferences of older Filipino migrants, and migrant integration in Japan. In the case of nurse migration, she has worked mainly on the theoretical underpinnings of the international stepwise migration behavior and its empirical examination in the case of Filipino nurses in Japan, Southeast Asia, the US, and Europe. Her articles were published in Routledge (Adhikari and Plotnikova – eds., 2023), the Journal of Feminist Economics Japan (2022), the International Journal of Social Economics (with Garces-Ozanne, A. 2022) and the Asian and Pacific Migration Journal (2021), among others.