High-skilled Migrants Research Articles

Alphabetical Author Order, Intellectual Collaboration and High-Skilled Migration

Abstract We study the consequences of alphabetical author order in economics for job placements of economists, based on a context that enables a clean identification. Results using two different data sets both show that, relative to Chinese physicists and statisticians, Chinese economists with surname initials located later in the alphabet tend not to stay in the US and are more likely to work in China. Such effects of surname initials on job placements are clearly identified and represent a result of alphabetical author order, because in Chinese culture, names are seldom listed alphabetically in contexts other than joint publications in international economics journals.

Global Talent and U.S. Immigration Policy

Talent is a critical resource for today’s knowledge economy. The United States has benefited substantially from high-skilled migration since the 1970s, especially with respect to innovation and entrepreneurship. This chapter reviews data on these immigrant contributions, and it discusses the important roles played by universities and firms under the American system. The chapter concludes with ways that U.S. immigration policy could be enhanced, which will become more important as other nations become more competitive for global talent.

Consuming the neighbourhood? Temporary highly skilled migrants in Montreal’s Mile End

ABSTRACT The neighbourhood of Mile End, in Montreal, Canada, is known to be a transient, multicultural hub, home to successive waves of migrants. It is internationally acclaimed in popular travel blogs and world lists of ‘hip’ neighbourhoods on the basis of indicators such as number of artists per square kilometre, café culture, and established independent shops. Yet a core of socially involved and rooted residents nurture the village-like vibe of the area. In the past decades, the eastern industrial zone of Mile End has seen a concentration of IT, gaming and film industries rise considerably, especially with the arrival of a large multinational company that brought a significant demographic of mostly affluent professional 20- and 30-something males. Local companies are recruiting temporary high-skilled migrants to respond to a growing demand for various types of designers and programmers. This paper documents the localised everyday life experience of temporary professional migrants’ in the neighbourhood. It considers migrants’ influence on the revitalisation of the area, and their the impact on the urban culture. Ethnographic data on how temporary migrants’ struggle for integration into forms of civic engagement are juxtaposed against their transnational urban lifestyles mostly defined by modes of consumption.

Skill Transferability and Migration: A Theoretical Analysis of Skilled Migration Under Frictional Skill Transfer

ABSTRACTIn this study, we analyze how skill transferability from an origin country to a destination country characterized by lower productivity, affects skilled worker migration, by using a multi-country new economic geography model proposed by Gasper et al. (2018). Specifically, we explain how countries that are less frictional in terms of skill transfer attract more high-skilled international migrants. The analysis, which is based on asymmetric skill transferability among countries that can be divided into two groups – those with smooth skill transferability for migrants and those with less smooth skill transferability – finds that countries with smooth skill transferability are more likely to be the industrial core attracting all skilled workers. We also find that lower frictional migration costs from a country with less smooth skill transferability to a country with smooth skill transferability always accelerates industrial agglomeration in the smooth skill transferability core country, while lower frictional migration costs between smooth skill transferability countries does not necessarily accelerate industrial agglomeration in a country with smooth skill transferability due to market crowding effects.

The Impact of Immigration on Skills, Innovation and Wages: Education Matters more than where People Come from

With the ensuing immigration reform in the US, the paper shows that targeted skilled immigration into the R&D sector that helps low-skilled labor is conducive for controlling inequality and raising wage. Skilled talent-led innovation could have spillover benefits for the unskilled sector while immigration into the production sector will always reduce wage, aggravating wage inequality. In essence, we infer: (i) if R&D inputs contributes only to skilled sector, wage inequality increases in general; (ii) for wage gap to decrease, R&D sector must produce inputs that goes into unskilled manufacturing sector; (iii) even with two types of specific R&D inputs entering into the skilled and unskilled sectors separately, unskilled labor is not always benefited by high skilled migrants into R&D-sector. Rather, it depends on the importance of migrants’ skill in R&D activities and intensity of inputs. Empirical verification using a VAR model in the context of the USA confirms the conjectures, and the empirical results substantiate our policy-guided hypothesis that skilled immigration facilitates innovation with favorable impact on reducing wage-gap. Inclusive immigration policy requires inter-sectoral diffusion of ideas embedded in talented immigrants targeted for innovation.

Crossed mobilities: the “recent wave” of Spanish migration to France after the economic crisis

ABSTRACT This article analyses the Spanish migration to France that emerged following the 2008 crisis from the perspective of crossed mobilities [Oso, L., A. Sáiz López, and A. Cortés. 2017. ““Movilidades Cruzadas” en un Contexto de Crisis: Una Propuesta Teórica Para el Estudio de la Movilidad Geográfica y Social, con un Enfoque de Género, Transnacional e Intergeneracional.” Revista Española de Sociología 26 (3): 293–306. doi:10.22325/fes/res.2017.24], focusing on the cross between social class, gender and generation. It considers the connection between this recent “migration wave” and Spanish low-skilled labour migration in the 1960s and 1970s (domestic service, caretaking, cleaning, the building sector). It also analyses high-skilled migration, which stands apart from traditional emigration, revealing the key role social origins play in labour market insertion. Finally, the article considers the crossed mobility between exiled Republicans and the Marea Granate or “Maroon Wave”, who refer to themselves as “economic exiles”. The analysis is based on qualitative fieldwork conducted in Paris with migrants that arrived in the wake of the 2008 crisis and virtual ethnography (Spanish emigration’s principal websites and Facebook portals).

The gender dimension of return for highly-skilled migrants

Although dynamics of return migration are highly gendered, gender remains as a relatively less studied dimension of return migration. Especially with regard to highly-skilled migrants, we know very little about what role gender plays in the decision-making processes related to their migration and return migration and experiences after return. This paper depends on 80 in-depth interviews with Turkish highly-skilled migrants who returned from Germany or the USA, and it focuses on the gender dimension of their migration and return migration experiences. It discusses gender differences in migration and return experiences in terms of their reasons for migration and experiences in the host country, reasons for return migration to Turkey, and their experiences in Turkey after return. The paper demonstrates that for highly-skilled women: 1) difficulties in balancing the demands of professional life and childcare is an important factor behind the decision to return to the home country; 2) gender discrimination based on social norms in the home country is more important than the professional life in the home country in making the re-adaptation process harder after return; 3) this type of discrimination in the home country is perceived more intensely after return compared to the period before migration.

The gender dimension of return for highly-skilled migrants

Although dynamics of return migration are highly gendered, gender remains as a relatively less studied dimension of return migration. Especially with regard to highly-skilled migrants, we know very little about what role gender plays in the decision-making processes related to their migration and return migration and experiences after return. This paper depends on 80 in-depth interviews with Turkish highly-skilled migrants who returned from Germany or the USA, and it focuses on the gender dimension of their migration and return migration experiences. It discusses gender differences in migration and return experiences in terms of their reasons for migration and experiences in the host country, reasons for return migration to Turkey, and their experiences in Turkey after return. The paper demonstrates that for highly-skilled women: 1) difficulties in balancing the demands of professional life and childcare is an important factor behind the decision to return to the home country; 2) gender discrimination based on social norms in the home country is more important than the professional life in the home country in making the re-adaptation process harder after return; 3) this type of discrimination in the home country is perceived more intensely after return compared to the period before migration.

China’s hukou system and city economic growth: from the aspect of rural–urban migration

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to evaluate the economic impacts of China’s hukou system and propose the possible direction for future reform.Design/methodology/approachThe study develops a framework to incorporate the hukou system into the economic growth model. Using prefecture city-level panel data covering 241 cities over the period 2004–2016 and applying the fixed effects and instrumental variable regression techniques, the authors investigated empirically the impacts of the hukou system on city economic growth.FindingsThe study provides three main findings. First, the city sector conditionally benefits from labour mobility deregulation that allows migrants to work in cities. Second, the hukou system has different impacts on economic growth among cities with different sizes and administrative levels. Third, to offset the costs of providing exclusive public services to the migrants, the big or high-administrative-level cities can use their high-valued hukou to attract the high-skilled migrants, but the small- or low-administrative-level cities do not have this advantage.Practical implicationsThis study suggests that the key for further hukou system reform is how to deal with the hukou–welfare binding relationship.Originality/valueThe authors developed a theoretical framework and conducted an empirical analysis on the direct relationship between the hukou system and economic growth to reveal the mechanism of how does the hukou system influence the city economic growth and answer the question of why is the hukou system reform so hard in China. The framework also sheds some lights on explaining the success and failure of the hukou system reforms in the past 40 years.

In for a Penny, or: If You Disapprove of Investment Migration, Why Do You Approve of High-Skilled Migration?

Abstract While many argue investment-based criteria for immigration are wrong or at least problematic, skill-based criteria remain relatively uncontroversial. This is normatively inconsistent. This article assesses three prominent normative objections to investment-based selection criteria for immigrants: (i) that they wrongfully discriminate between prospective immigrants (ii) that they are unfair, and (iii) that they undermine political equality among citizens. It argues that either skill-based criteria are equally susceptible to these objections, or that investment-based criteria are equally shielded from them. Indeed, in some ways investment-based criteria are less normatively problematic than skill-based criteria. Given this analysis, the resistance to investment-based migration criteria, but not to skill-based criteria, is inconsistent.

Political Socialisation Patterns of Turkish High Skilled Migrants

Political socialisation has been studied from different perspectives, such as voting behaviour, the impact of social networks, socialisation types and political culture on voting as well as engagement in political life. This article examines the political socialisation patterns and participation of high-skilled Turkish migrants living in different parts of the world. The main purpose is to shed light on the ways in which these migrants participate in Turkish politics; how much they are engaged or interested in Turkish politics; and how their socialisation patterns are formed. The results show that Turkish high-skilled migrants have a strong interest in Turkish politics; however, their political socialisation and engagement, except for voting, is low. In this article, it is pointed out that there is a strong relationship between the level of education and political participation as well as interest in politics. The data (N=350) were collected by an online survey conducted among Turkish migrants, who had at least a university degree and were living abroad at the time of the survey.

Do Directors’ Mobility Restrictions Matter? An International Evidence

From business to politics and academia, the economic effects of restrictions of high-skilled migration are under scrutiny. We examine and quantify the effects of the restrictions on corporate directors’ mobility on the firm market value. Using two unexpected events – the outcome of the EU referendum in the UK and the election of Donald Trump as the US President and his decisions to restrict the entrance of nationals of several majority Muslim countries to the USA - we find that restricting international mobility of high-skilled workers has a negative impact on the firm value, measured as the cumulative abnormal returns (CARs). This result remains robust under alternative specifications and placebo tests. Moreover, we show that the firms that have foreign directors on boards that do not face additional mobility restrictions experience an increase in value around the aforementioned events, suggesting the transfer of usefulness between the two categories of foreign directors.

Book Review: High-Skilled Migration to the United States and Its Economic Consequences

Book Review: High-Skilled Migration to the United States and Its Economic Consequences

The global South as a solution to cope with the crisis: Following the transnational itineraries of the precarised Spaniards towards Algeria

Abstract The rising economies in the global South have been a destination of expatriates, businessmen, and high-skilled migrants during the bonanza times. A move to these places was seen as cosmopolitan way to improve professional careers by acquiring international experience or higher quality of education. However, in the post-crisis context after the crash of 2008, the needs of the Southern European populace have changed due to the precarisation of their social contexts in terms of economic insecurity which instead have been pushed them to seek job opportunities across borders to avoid unemployment. In this article, we shed light on the transnational strategies performed by the precarised Spaniards moving to Algeria to cope with the constraints that the crisis initiated in their day-to-day needs. In doing so, under the lens of the transnational theory and the mobility turn, we performed multi-sited fieldwork between 2012 and 2016, based on in-depth interviews with participant observation of Spaniards who have developed a transnational strategy between both countries since 2005 to 2016. The goal of this longitudinal methodology was to identify how the effects of the crisis have encouraged the evolution of these transnational itineraries attending to the particular tensions when moving to this country culturally different in the other side of the Mediterranean. Through three specific cases, we show how these Spaniards reshaped their trajectories from short-term mobilities, punctual and voluntarily planned and scheduled, to circular mobilities, perceived as an imposition by the social context without the possibility to decide when to come back home.

Struggling for Recognition: Highly-Skilled Migrants’ Cultural Capital in the Inclusive Organization

This paper aims at proposing that class, and in particular, cultural capital is a dimension to be considered in the understanding of highly-skilled migrants’ (HSM) inclusion at work. Inspired by Bo...

Innovation-based urbanization: Evidence from 270 cities at the prefecture level or above in China

With the rapid development of knowledge economy, a number of important shifts are emerging in urbanization pattern across the world. Traditional urbanization theory has become hard to interpret these changes on a global scale, and “innovation” is a core concept to explain the new changes of the urbanization dynamics. As one of the important contents of urban geography, urbanization dynamic needs to turn from the general population flows between rural and urban areas into emphasizing high skilled migrants flow among cities and regions research. Against this background, we propose a conception of innovation-based urbanization. Using this concept, this study analyzes the spatial distribution characteristics of high skilled migrants and cultural diversity on urban innovation in China, based on the data of the sixth census of 270 cities at the prefecture level or above in China. This study measures the extent to which highly skilled migrants and cultural diversity increase urban innovation, by using spatial Durbin method to construct urban innovation regression model, to support the concept of innovation-based urbanization. The result shows that: first of all, the concept of innovation-based urbanization conforms to the development of knowledge economy, which emphasizes the migration process of highly skilled labor to cities. It helps to promote the changes in urban functions and landscapes and the expansion of urban knowledge activities, which undelines new dynamics of urban development, innovative landscape. Secondly, innovation urbanization based on highly skilled migrants flow is an important driving force for the development of Chinese cities, especially for eastern coastal cities and capital cities. Thirdly, the scale of highly skilled migrants flow and the level of urban cultural diversity in China both have been demonstrated of having positive effect on urban innovation output. With other conditions unchanged, a 10% increase in the number of urban highly skilled migrants and urban cultural diversity will directly result in an increase of 3% and 2% in urban innovation output respectively. This research has deepened our understanding and awareness of the openness and dynamics of the regional innovation system, and it has also provided an important theoretical basis for the formulation of urbanization and urban development policy under knowledge economy.

Migration and Lived Experiences of Racism: The Case of High-Skilled Migrants in Wrocław, Poland

This article examines migrants’ lived experiences with racism in Wrocław, Poland. Drawing on qualitative research conducted among high-skilled migrants, it analyzes various ways migrants encounter, understand, and cope with racism. Our case study broadens discussion about migration and racism by analyzing an Eastern European, post-socialist, predominantly “white” receiving society seldom researched in terms of racism. The article problematizes the assumption that high-skilled migrants experience only minor problems with incorporation. Furthermore, it suggests the importance of racial boundaries in a non-Western society that lacks a colonial background and long-standing relations with migrants. Therefore, our article contributes to a better understanding of how local settings inform the experiences of high-skilled migrants, which are often lost in abstract concepts of global flows and spaces.

The importance of friends: social life challenges for foreign physicians in Southern Sweden

ABSTRACT The article connects the fields of work/non-work research with the research on social integration of migrants. It is based on in-depth interviews with foreign physicians in the south of Sweden which explored their work/non-work experiences and their subjective perceptions of managing work, family, social and private domains of life. Based on individual reflections of social life as experienced in the workplace, in the locations of everyday life and transnationally, the analysis does not pursue the existence and composition of social networks but focuses on non-instrumental aspects of social life and explores their significance for high-skilled migrants’ own sense of integration. The findings suggest that migrants who are privileged in terms of education and employment still face extensive challenges in the social domain of life, especially with regard to close friendships. The findings furthermore suggest that social integration is a process that is influenced by place, time and individual life trajectories and therefore cannot be truthfully accounted for by looking at the numbers and ethnic composition of a migrant’s social relations. It is the quality of relations – notably friendships – that matters most.

Mobile Brains and The Question of ‘Deskilling’: <i>High-skilled South Asian migrants in Denmark</i>

Based on two ethnographic studies on the experiences of high-skilled migrants in Denmark, we argue that it is problematic to presume a simple correlation between ‘deskilling’ and what is often regarded as low-status jobs. We claim that many of these migrants are, albeit discreetly, actively gaining new skills and knowledge through low-status jobs not related to their qualifications and/or utilising their existing knowledge and skills in their everyday lives. We approach skills as a social construct that differs according to context and under particular historical circumstances, not merely as a neutral, measurable and easily transferable human capital. The article offers critical analysis of simultaneous processes of skilling– deskilling–reskilling–upskilling linked to migration and generates new insights into debates on highly educated migrants in a Nordic context.

\u201cThis is not a career move\u201d - accompanying partners\u2019 labour market participation after migration

In recent years, an increasingly international competition for highly-skilled professionals has become apparent. Many countries try to attract highly-skilled migrants and to keep them for the long term. These countries also allow the immigration of close family members, who are expected to play an important role in the decision to migrate and to stay in a country. However, accompanying partners often face significant difficulties when entering the foreign labour market.The paper is based on 26 qualitative interviews with the accompanying partners of highly-skilled migrants in the United Kingdom [UK]. It explores the challenges that they face when trying to take up work after migration, elaborates on their strategies of finding work and examines the conditions for their labour market integration. The paper draws on Bourdieu’s concept of capital accumulation and conversion and asks how partners negotiate the value of their cultural capital after migration. In order to better understand their professional integration, accompanying partners’ positions after migration are related to their career plans before migration. Consequently, the paper differentiates between family migrants who use their expatriation as an occasion for a career change, family migrants who continue their career abroad and family migrants who wish to continue their career, but do not succeed.