1st Edition

Rethinking International Skilled Migration

Edited By Micheline van Riemsdijk, Qingfang Wang Copyright 2017
    334 Pages
    by Routledge

    334 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    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.

    List of Figures



    List of Tables



    List of Contributors



    Acknowledgments





    1 Introduction: Rethinking International Skilled Migration: A Placed-based and Spatial Perspective



    MICHELINE VAN RIEMSDIJK AND QINGFANG WANG





    PART I



    International Student Migration





    2 Producing International Student Migration: An Exploration of the Role of Marketization in Shaping International Study Opportunities



    ALLAN FINDLAY, RUSSELL KING, AND ALEXANDRA STAM





    3 Complex Decisions: Factors Determining International Students’ Migrations



    HEIKE ALBERTS





    4 European Mobile Students, (Trans)National Social Networks, and (Inter)National Career Perspectives



    CHRISTOF VAN MOL





    5 Mental Health and the Student-migrant Experience: Sources of Stress for Norwegian Quota Scheme Students



    SCOTT BASFORD





    6 Chinese Student Migrants in Transition: A Pathway from International Students to Skilled Migrants



    WAN YU



    7 Internationalization, Localization, and the Eduscape of Higher Education in the Global South: The Case of South Africa



    ASHLEY GUNTER AND PARVATI RAGHURAM





    PART II



    Transforming Cities, Transforming Lives





    8 "London is a Much More Interesting Place than Paris": Place-comparison and the Moral Geographies of Highly Skilled Migrants



    JON MULHOLLAND AND LOUISE RYAN





    9 High-skilled Migrants, Place Ties, and Urban Policymaking: Putting Housing on the Agenda



    JÖRG PLÖGER





    10 Homogenizing the City: Place Marketing to Attract Skilled Migrants to Stavanger and Kongsberg



    MICHELINE VAN RIEMSDIJK





    11 Expatriate Mobility, Firm Recruitment, and Local Context: Skilled International Migration to the Rapidly Globalizing City of Dubai



    MICHAEL

    Biography

    Micheline van Riemsdijk is J. Harrison and Robbie C. Livingston Associate Professor of Population Geography at the University of Tennessee, USA.



    Qingfang Wang is an Associate Professor of Geography and Public Policy at the University of California Riverside, USA.