Political and scientific debates on migration policies have mostly focused on governments' efforts to control or reduce low-skilled, asylum, and irregular migration or to encourage the return migration of these categories. Less research and constructive discourse has been conducted on the role and effectiveness of policies to attract or retain high-skilled workers. An improved understanding of the drivers and dynamics of high-skilled migration is essential for effective policy-making, as most highly developed and emerging economies experience growing shortages of high-skilled labour supply in certain occupations and sectors, and skilled immigration is often viewed as one way of addressing these.
Simplistic assumptions that high-skilled migrants are primarily in pursuit of higher wages raise the expectation that policies which open channels for high-skilled immigration are generally successful. Although many countries have introduced policies aimed at attracting and facilitating the recruitment of high-skilled workers, not all recruitment efforts have had the desired effects, and anecdotal evidence on the effectiveness of these programmes is rather mixed. The reason is that the rather narrow focus on migration policy coincides with a lack of systematic and rigorous consideration of other economic, social, and political drivers of migration, which may be equally - or sometimes even more - important than migration policies per se. A better understanding of migration policies, their making, consequences and limitations, requires a systematic knowledge of the broader economic, social and political structures and their interaction in both origin and destination countries.
This book enhances this vibrant field of social scientific enquiry by providing a systematic, multidisciplinary, and global analysis of policies driving international high-skilled migration processes in their interaction with other migration drivers at the individual, city, national, and international level.
1. High-Skilled Migration: Introduction and Synopsis, Mathias Czaika
2. High-Skilled Migration in Times of Global Economic Crisis, Mathias Czaika and Christopher Parsons
3. High-Skilled Migration and the Limits of Migration Policies, Ronald Skeldon
4. Female High-Skilled Migration: The Role of Policies, Anna Boucher
5. European High-Skilled Migration Policy: Trends and Challenges, Lucie Cerna
6. Shifts in Selective Migration Policy Models: A Comparison of Australia, Canada, and the US, Rey Koslowski
7. High-Skilled Migration Policy Challenges from a US Perspective, Michael S. Teitelbaum
8. High-Skilled Immigration and Innovation, Alessandra Venturini, Sona Kalantaryan, and Claudio Fassio
9. High-Skilled Migration and the Attractiveness of Cities, Michael C. Ewers and Ryan Dicce
10. Attracting and Retaining International Students as Skilled Migrants, Lesleyanne Hawthorne
11. International Student Mobility: Sending Country Determinants and Policies, Mary M. Kritz and Douglas T. Gurak
12. Internationalisation and Diversification of Academic Careers, Sorana Toma, Maria Villares-Varela, and Mathias Czaika
13. Postdoctoral Destination Decisions: Advice from Asian-born, Western-Trained Bio-Scientists, Anju Mary Paul
14. What Fundamentals Drive the Immigration of Physicians? A Panel Data Analysis of OECD Countries, Yasser Moullan
15. Recruitment Policies of Non-EU/EEA Nurses and Ethical Issues: A Comparison of the UK, France, and Switzerland, Angele Mendy
16. Staunching the Flow: The Brain Drain and Health Professional Retention Strategies in South Africa, Jonathan Crush and Abel Chikanda
17. Conclusion, Mathias Czaika