ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to understand how government policy affects careers. To illustrate our argument, we take the example of the role of government policy and its effect on the careers of internal migrants (citizens of a country who relocate, permanently or temporarily, within the country). According to the United Nations (2015: 1) the “global urban population is projected to grow by 2.5 billion urban dwellers between 2014 and 2050, with nearly 90 per cent of the increase concentrated in Asia and Africa.” This movement of people has caused many governments to develop policies to capitalize on economic development opportunities while minimizing the ills of mass rural-urban migration or over-concentration of population in certain urban centers. Numerous countries, such as Malaysia, Brazil, Philippines, Indonesia, and India, have over the past decades experimented with, and implemented, various policies that directly or indirectly affect the movement and geographical distribution of workers, and thus their careers, within national borders. Many of these policies adopted have been intended to restrict the movement of people from their place of origin. Such restrictions, in turn, have profound implications for the careers of citizens as they manage the opportunities, challenges, incentives and disincentives they face when relocating.
