A “capability view” on migration: some theoretical issues raised by the Southern Euro Zone highly skilled mobility

Abstract

The Southern Euro Zone countries show significant delays to adapt their social and productive systems to the EU goal of creating knowledge-based societies. A signal can be the increasingly higher level of skilled labor migration from these countries, especially during the actual crisis. Recent literature on skilled migrations often rejects the concept of “brain drain” (BD) arguing that circulation and exchange of people and knowledge is expected in the era of globalization. Using both conceptual analysis and secondary data, the paper attempts to highlight proportions of the intra-EU BD phenomenon and show how they may challenge the assumptions of circular migration models. It discusses that a BD problem likely exists in the Southern Euro Zone and proposes an alternative framework for its analysis. The main hypothesis behind this review is that the phenomenon relies on substantial lack of social opportunities for high-skilled people in the countries of origin as provoked by multiple factors. In this account, the several drivers of migrants' choice will be conceptualized by adopting a “Capability Approach,” and they will be further analyzed according to its foremost hypotheses regarding rational behavior, human welfare, and development. The resulting theoretical view has to be considered as an expansion of the neoclassical economics “standard view” on high-skilled migrations.