Migrant Biographies: a Life Course Approach to High Skilled Migration

Abstract

The rapid decline in transportation and telecommunications costs are encouraging the swift mobility of skilled migrants. Concurrently, many of the European Union countries search for the ways to attract highly skilled migrants in order to deal with the consequences of population decline and shortage of skilled labour. It is not only important to examine labour migrants as economic bodies but also as people who experience various life transitions. As previous research has rarely linked high-skilled migration and life course, this paper aims to propose a theoretical framework for studying the interdependencies of knowledge migrants’ parallel careers of migration, employment, and household. Applying life course approach enables to gain deeper understanding of the influence of life paths, social networks, diasporas, and immigration policies on the migration decisionmaking among highly skilled migrants.