The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD) projects a decline of nine to 17 per cent in total ODA by 2025, alongside an anticipated widening of the financing gap for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), expected to reach USD 6.4 trillion by 2030(OECD, 2025a). These shifts risk reversing hard-won progress in gender justice and local leadership, as feminist and civil society organisations struggle to sustain operations amid shrinking fiscal space and political backlash. 2.3.6 Labour Migration Migration today constitutes one of the most complex international policy challenges due to its scale, transnational nature, and entanglement with other global issues—labour, security, gender, and climate change. As Rhacel Salazar Parreñas(2015) argues, migrant women’s domestic labour underpins what she calls the international division of reproductive labour, a global system in which care work performed by women from poorer countries sustains the social and economic reproduction of wealthier societies. Mainstream migration policymaking, however, continues to construct migration in gender-neutral terms, typically from “the standpoint of a universal, undifferentiated‘male’ subject”(Aguis& Clark, 2019, as cited in Pallapothu, 2024). In contrast, feminist migration scholarship situates mobility within systems of power, recognising migration as a deeply gendered process embedded in the global political economy and intersecting hierarchies of class, nationality, and race. In the global economy, migrant women’s labour is predominantly concentrated in informal and undervalued sectors that reproduce patriarchal divisions of labour. As Bridget Anderson(2000) famously describes, they dominate the“three Cs” of global care chains: cooking, caring, and cleaning. Even when men are the primary migrants, women frequently become the economic and social anchors of their households and communities(Wright, 1995). The social dimensions of migration, including the well-being of children in transnational families, further demonstrate how mobility intersects with education, social protection, and gender policy(Fu et al., 2024). When migration policy fails to recognise these interlinkages, it deepens structural inequalities, amplifies vulnerabilities, undermines migrants’ human security, and strains welfare systems(Haas et al., 2020). The Asia-Pacific region is both a major source and destination of global migration, accounting for roughly one-third of the world’s international migrants(ILO, 2024a). Most of these movements are intra-regional, facilitated by economic interdependence, demographic shifts, and regional labour mobility frameworks. Migration in the region has become increasingly gender-balanced(ILO, 2024a), as women’s participation in cross-border work and remittance flows continues to rise, challenging gendered assumptions about who migrates and why. Across the region, remittances remain a vital source of economic resilience and household income. In 2023, the top recipients in the Asia–Pacific were India, China, the Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, and the Republic of Korea(ILO, 2024a). To improve migrant protection, many Asia-Pacific countries have adopted bilateral labour agreements(BLAs) and memoranda of understanding(MOUs) that clearly outline the rights and obligations of sending and receiving states. These instruments establish standards for recruitment, employment contracts, dispute resolution, and repatriation— key mechanisms for reducing exploitation and strengthening accountability(ILO, 2015). A notable example is the Philippines–Saudi Arabia BLA(2013) for domestic workers, which introduced standardised contracts, minimum wages, and grievance mechanisms. This reform significantly reduced recruitment abuse and contract substitution while improving access to legal aid and timely wages. At the regional level, frameworks such as the ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers and the Colombo Process have promoted ethical recruitment, information sharing, and fair labour mobility corridors, thereby creating safer and more transparent migration systems((International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2024), aligned with feminist principles of care, dignity, and rights-based governance. The Philippines stands out as a regional leader in gender­responsive migration governance. Through the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration(POEA) and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration(OWWA), it has developed portable social protection mechanisms—covering health insurance, death benefits, and reintegration loans— that travel with workers abroad. Its Social Security System (SSS) has negotiated bilateral agreements with Austria, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, and Japan, enabling migrants to combine contribution periods and access benefits without double coverage(Pasadilla& Abella, 2012; ILO, 2015). Moreover, initiatives like the Philippine Qualifications Framework(PQF), aligned with the ASEAN Qualifications Reference Framework(AQRF), ensure regional recognition of skills and certifications. Together, these measures strengthen the economic agency of migrant women and help address their structural exclusion from formal employment—a key driver of gendered precarity in migration. Moreover, these innovations in migration governance must be situated within the wider global division of reproductive labour, where racialised women from the Global South, particularly Filipinas, fill care deficits in wealthier households abroad. As feminist scholars note, this structural demand for low-paid domestic labour underpins the very migration flows that Philippine policies seek to regulate and protect. Similarly, Malaysia’s 2024 policy reform, which extends its national social security scheme administered by the Social Security Organisation(PERKESO/SOCSO) to foreign migrant workers, represents a significant institutional shift towards CH 2: Current State Analysis 29