In today’s global knowledge economy, competition for the best and brightest workers has intensified. Highly skilled workers are an asset to companies, knowledge institutions, cities, and regions as they contribute to knowledge creation, innovation, and economic growth and development. Skilled migrants cross, and many times straddle, international borders to pursue professional opportunities. These spatial relocations provide opportunities and challenges for migrants and the cities and regions they inhabit. How have international skilled migratory flows been formed, sustained, and transformed over multiple spaces and scales? How have these processes affected cities and regions? And how have multiple stakeholders responded to these processes? The contributors to this book bring together perspectives from economic, social, urban, and population geography in order to address these questions from a myriad of angles. Empirical case studies from different regions illuminate the multiscaled processes of international skilled migration. In particular, the contributions rethink skilled migration theories and provide insights into: the experiences of highly skilled labor migrants and international students; issues related to transnational activities and return migration; and policy implications for both immigrant source and destination countries. It also charts a future research agenda for international skilled migration research. Rethinking International Skilled Migration provides a comparative perspective on the experiences of skilled migrants across the local, regional, national, and/or global scale, paying particular attention to spatial and place-based dimensions of international skilled migration. It will be of interest to scholars and professionals in international migration, regional and national development policymakers, international businesses, and NGOs.

This volume examines self-initiated expatriates (SIEs), the category of highly skilled people whose movement from one country to another is by choice. Although they are not forced to relocate due to work, conflict or natural disaster, their migration pattern is every bit as complex. The book challenges previous theoretical approaches that take for granted a more simplistic view of this population, and advances that mobility of SIEs relates to the expatriates themselves, their conditions and the different structures intervening in their career life course. With their visible increase worldwide, this book positions itself as a nexus for this on-going discussion, while linking self-initiated expatriation to the theoretical landscape of international skilled migration and mobility. Major interests that catch attention are transnational practices, work-related experiences and personal life course, including forms of inequalities in their migration experiences. The book identifies forms and drivers of migratory behaviour and provides an argument concerning the broader processes of mobility and integration. As such, this book constitutes a departure point for future research in terms of theoretical underpinnings and empirical rigor on global highly skilled mobility of SIEs. The collection of empirical case studies offers an insightful analysis for policy makers, concerned stakeholders and organizations to better cope with this form of migration.

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.

This two-volume set presents the conference papers from the 1st International Conference on Economics, Development and Sustainability (EDESUS 2019), organized by the University of Economics and Business, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. The collection addresses global changes and sustainable development in Vietnam and other emerging market economies in Asia, and covers wider topics such as economics and business (e.g. economic theory, national and international income distribution, macroeconomic policies, sectors of economy, productivity developments, financial market, business governance, bank financing), development and sustainability (e.g. developing process, development policy, public policy, sustainable growth, sustainability tools, sustainable livelihood, sustainable tourism, green growth), and resources and global change (e.g. human resources, natural resources, climate change, globalization, global challenges). The books are of interest to professors, researchers, lecturers, and students in economics and geography, consultants, and decision makers interested in global changes and sustainable development. Volume 1 focuses on economic development in Vietnam and other emerging market economies in Asia. This covers topics such as economics and business (e.g. economic theory, national and international income distribution, macroeconomic policies, sectors of economy, productivity developments, financial market, business governance, bank financing) and development studies (e.g. developing process, development policy, public policy, green growth).

This volume investigates the "global education effect"—the impact of global education initiatives on institutional and individual practices and perceptions—with a special focus on the dynamics of border construction, recognition, subversion, and erasure regarding "Japan". The Japanese government’s push for global education has taken shape mainly in the form of English-medium instruction programs and bringing in international students who sometimes serve as a foreign workforce to fill the declining labour force. Chapters in this volume draw from education, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, and psychology to examine the ways in which demographic changes, economic concerns, race politics, and nationhood intersect with the efforts to "globalize" education and create specific "global education effects" in the Japanese archipelago. This book will provide a valuable resource for anyone who is interested in Japanese studies and global education.

Cross-Border Interactions and Encounters between Germany and Korea undertakes an interdisciplinary, comprehensive exploration of the multifaceted dimensions of Korea and Germany’s relationships. Offering fresh perspectives and insights into the development and transformations of these cross-border interactions, this book comes as a welcome examination of a relatively underrepresented research area.

India Migration Report 2019 examines the issues of identity related to integration in European societies. It examines the multifarious nature of social, economic and political engagements of the Indian diaspora with their host societies in Europe. This volume: assesses the historical trends in migration to Europe, mobility paths and transnational networks of skilled Indian migrants, as well as recent tendencies in movements of migrants; explores the roles of Indian migrants in transforming host societies with their skills and capabilities; highlights their contribution towards the development of their homeland through knowledge transfer, philanthropy, capital flows, remittances and investment; takes stock of the impact of recent events, especially Brexit and anti-immigrant positioning of some political parties; uses mixed research methods including ethnography, key informant interviews and in-depth case studies. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of development studies, economics, demography, sociology and social anthropology, and migration and diaspora studies.

This revised and expanded second edition of Routledge International Handbook of Migration Studies provides a comprehensive basis for understanding the complexity and patterns of international migration. Despite increased efforts to limit its size and consequences, migration has wide-ranging impacts upon social, environmental, economic, political and cultural life in countries of origin and settlement. Such transformations impact not only those who are migrating, but those who are left behind, as well as those who live in the areas where migrants settle. Featuring forty-six essays written by leading international and multidisciplinary scholars, this new edition showcases evolving research and theorizing around refugees and forced migrants, new migration paths through Central Asia and the Middle East, the condition of statelessness and South to South migration. New chapters also address immigrant labor and entrepreneurship, skilled migration, ethnic succession, contract labor and informal economies. Uniquely among texts in the subject area, the Handbook provides a six-chapter compendium of methodologies for studying international migration and its impacts. Written in a clear and direct style, this Handbook offers a contemporary integrated resource for students and scholars from the perspectives of social science, humanities, journalism and other disciplines.

This volume explores the experiences of a wide variety of middle-class migrant groups across the globe, including ‘ethnic entrepreneurs’ building new businesses in cosmopolitan neighbourhoods in Sydney; Chinese grandparents shuttling between Australia, China and Singapore to support their extended families; well-off young Indians in Mumbai strategising their future education pathways overseas; and Japanese mothers finding ways to belong in a London middle-class neighbourhood. This book asks how relatively privileged migrant groups negotiate their life trajectories, relationships and aspirations while ‘on the move’ and how they transform the communities and societies that they move between across time and space. The book’s chapters consider motives for migration, as well as experiences of risk, uncertainty and insecurity in diverse local contexts. A fresh look at the migration of those who possess skills and resources that can bring about significant economic, social and cultural change, this book engages critically with the notions of ‘middling’ migration, social mobility and mobile privilege in the global context of hardening borders and immigration complexity. It will appeal to scholars with interests in contemporary forms of migration and mobility and their local and transnational consequences.

In the age of globalization, the transnational dimension of sciences like medicine seems to be given. However, the agents connecting different parts of this transnational biomedical landscape have yet to receive their due attention. Situated at the intersection of contemporary debates as well as theories of medical anthropology and migration in the 21st century, this book explores the experiences of Nigerian trained physicians who migrated to the US and the UK within the last 40 years. By drawing on individual professional life stories, Judith Schühle illuminates how these physicians disconnect from and (re)connect to diverse local social and biomedical contexts, becoming established abroad while at the same time trying to influence health care services in Nigeria through transnational endeavors.