Facilitating Worker Mobility: A Randomized Information Intervention among Migrant Workers in Singapore

Abstract

International migrant workers often face high job search costs and imperfect information on their legal rights to change employers. Such information constraints can undermine the economic benefits from international migration by tying migrant workers to their current employers, leading them to accept less favorable employment terms. We ran a randomized experiment on the impact of facilitating worker mobility via an information intervention among Filipino maids in Singapore. The treatment led to improvements in knowledge of legal rights related to changing jobs as well as in job conditions (e.g., improved hours and other conditions of work). Treatment effects are concentrated among workers who initially had (prior to treatment) low knowledge of their legal rights as well as those with poor initial job conditions. Workers with poor job conditions also became more likely to change employers in response to treatment. The results reveal the empirical relevance of imperfect information in the labor market for migrant workers, particularly information facilitating job-to-job transitions.