Quoted: This verdant swath of southern Indian coastline is a famously good place to be poor. People in the state of Kerala live nearly as long as Americans do, on a sliver of the income. They read at nearly the same rates.

Quoted: They still wake before dawn in desert dormitories that pack a dozen men or more to a room. They still pour concrete and tie steel rods in temperatures that top 110 degrees. They still spend years away from families in India and Pakistan to earn about $1 an hour. They remain bonded to employers under terms that critics liken to indentured servitude.

Quoted: Migrants who can no longer sustain themselves by farming are flocking to brickyards to fuel the Indian construction boom.

An in-depth article. A lot of it holds true not just for the Philippines but also in large swathes of South Asia.

Quoted: Migrant workers from the Philippines send billions back to their country. But the Comodas family’s multigenerational experience with working abroad shows that the human cost is harder to calculate.