Institute of East Asian Studies

Selected Projects under the DFG Individual Grants Programme 

Cross-Border Temporary Staffing. Market-Making and Transnational Regulation in Inter-Regional Comparison

The leading questions of Prof. Karen Shire’s DFG research project consider how and why markets for temporary labour are taking on transnational dimensions and to what extent it is possible to govern and regulate them. Transnationalization studies often take developments in the EU as their point of reference. IN-EAST’s many years of experience in East Asia make it possible to arrive at general conclusions beyond European boundaries. Current research shows temping agency placements across national borders in the course of regional economic integration to have risen equally in both Europe and East Asia. In Europe this applies to workers from Hungary, the Czech Republic and especially Poland, while in East Asia China is an important destination for and origin of this form of labour migration. Funding period: 2013–2015.