ABSTRACT
This chapter gives an overview of key research on highly skilled migration. Highly skilled migrants either have special skills based on experience in a specific field or a tertiary higher educational degree such as a Masters or PhD. For the last 50 years a growing global economy has encouraged the migration of the highly skilled around the world. Researchers have focused on the interests of key actors in the migration process: the nation state, multinational corporations, and migrants themselves. Nation-states have been increasingly concerned about a “brain drain,” in which the best and the brightest individuals emigrate to other countries either temporarily or permanently. Although this phenomenon used to be a concern primarily for developing countries, it now affects post-industrialized countries as the global competition for highly skilled employees continuous to increase. International corporations readily encourage highly skilled migration to ensure research, innovation, and development for their businesses. These goals work in tandem with national strategies to attract and retain successful businesses and employees. The motivations and career goals of the highly skilled migrants themselves play a significant role as individuals consider their place in the global world. Highly skilled migrants are often portrayed as a fortunate group based on their education and skills. However, discrimination, unemployment, offshoring of skilled jobs, and non-transferable degrees are a growing concern for this group. The overall conditions of highly skilled migration changed dramatically with the introduction
of information technology (IT) and its rapid spread throughout industrialized countries. Emerging markets have led to a high demand for the highly skilled and also renewed interest in their movements. Castells (2000) argues that information technology was necessary to create a shift from a world economy based on industrial production to the development of a global economy rooted in technology and information. The global economy “includes financial markets, international trade, transnational production, and, to some extent, science and technology, and specialty labor” (Castells 2000: 101). Productivity, development, and growth are dependent on workers who have special skills and/or a high level of education. Furthermore, sectors of society will be based and transformed by knowledge and information technology leading to a new occupational structure (Castells 2000).
