Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

8-2026

Abstract

Migration studies have mostly portrayed employers as paternalistic or exploitative, creating the very conditions that make migrants’ lives insecure and unstable. This paper challenges this view by showing how the market can also be an unlikely source of protections, where extractive work conditions co-exist with a certain degree of social support. Drawing on interviews with 45 Filipino cruise workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, I discuss how migrants used a logic of employee rights to claim benefits such as food, housing and insurance. Cruise lines willingly provided such protections, but only while workers maintained active contracts onboard their ships. Rather than a discourse of human rights, migrants use a transactional logic of workplace benefits to make corporations responsible for their basic needs. These findings emphasise the dual role makes employers an unlikely but dependable resource for migrant workers, particularly in contexts where state welfare regimes are weak or simply non-existent. These strategies, and the transactional logics that underpin them, are relatively understudied in scholarship on transnational social protections.

Keywords

COVID-19, Cruise, Return migration, Seafarer, Social protections

Discipline

Human Resources Management | Sociology

Research Areas

Sociology

Areas of Excellence

Growth in Asia

Publication

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

First Page

1

Last Page

17

ISSN

1369-183X

Identifier

10.1080/1369183X.2026.2713269

Publisher

Taylor and Francis

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2026.2713269

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