ABSTRACT
This study is an analysis ex post facto. However, the period under study (1981-90) is not wholly an arbitrary one of a neat ten-year span, for it was the period in which the ‘problem’ of foreign migrant workers surfaced to public awareness and led to political discussion, and it was in its closing year that this process was brought to a climax with the introduction of a new Immigration Control Act on 1 June 1990. No doubt some other time-slice could be equally well justified but in no case is socio-surgical precision possible. I therefore transgress this time-frame when it is necessary or heuristically useful to do so. The ex post facto nature of every thorough sociological analysis has the consequence that new developments cannot-or can only exceptionally, and with ad hoc interpretation-be taken into consideration.
