Allan Findlay

Ever Reluctant Europeans The Changing Geographies of UK Students Studying and Working Abroad

Students have been little studied as a mobile population, despite their increasing importance among human flows in the contemporary globalizing world. This article examines changing mobility patterns, attitudes and behaviours of UK higher education students who spend a part of their degree programme studying or working abroad. The research was stimulated by perceptions that UK students were turning away from international mobility, especially to Europe. Using a multi-method approach, based on further statistical analysis of existing data sources, notably the UK Socrates–Erasmus student dataset, and on a range of questionnaire and interview surveys to staff and students in selected UK higher education institutions, the article explores the changing patterns of student movement and the drivers and barriers to mobility for UK students. We find that UK studentss decreasing mobility to Europe is more than compensated by rising flows to other world destinations, especially North America and Australia. Questionnaire and interview data reveal the prime significance of language and financial factors as barriers to European mobility. Evidence also points to the embeddedness of personal mobility in relation to social class and the ways in which the varied practices of a socially differentiated higher education system may reproduce relative social advantage and disadvantage through access to international mobility opportunities. The article concludes with further attempts to conceptualize student mobility and to draw out policy aspects.

The repopulation of rural Scotland: opportunity and threat

Abstract This paper examines the demographic and economic impacts associated with the repopulation of rural Scotland. It incorporates data obtained from a household survey and qualitative interviews. Possible threats include increased competition in all housing sectors and changes in the composition of rural communities. It is argued that these changes are not solely caused by in-migration, but that in-migration is itself a product of national and global advancement. Any assessment of migration impacts needs to be viewed within the context of rural restructuring — a view which is taken in this analysis. Using this approach it is concluded that rural in-migration is associated with many opportunities (employment creation and prospects for increased rural expenditure). However, these economic opportunities have yet to be fully realised for the benefit of rural Scotland.

Re-thinking residential mobility Linking lives through time and space

While researchers are increasingly re-conceptualizing international migration, far less attention has been devoted to re-thinking short-distance residential mobility and immobility. In this paper we harness the life course approach to propose a new conceptual framework for residential mobility research. We contend that residential mobility and immobility should be re-conceptualized as relational practices that link lives through time and space while connecting people to structural conditions. Re-thinking and re-assessing residential mobility by exploiting new developments in longitudinal analysis will allow geographers to understand, critique and address pressing societal challenges.

Methodological Issues in Researching Migration

Population geographers should consider a mixed methods approach to thestudy of migration. This methodological position arises in response to the challenges of contemporary social theory. It is argued that application of structuration theory favours use of a diversity of methods to investigate the recursive relationship between agency and structure. Similarly a realist stance, as advocated by Sayer (1992), leads to a mixing of methods in order to carry out the synthesising tasks expected of geographers. Postmodernism, when interpreted as method, also points the researcher to consider adopting flexible research practices in order to capture the multiplicities of meaning associated with migration and place. These points are illustrated by a case study of migration to and from Hong Kong.

Will attracting the 'creative class' boost economic growth in old industrial regions: a case study of Scotland?

Abstract. Attracting in‐migration of the creative class has been argued by Florida (2002) to be a route to higher economic growth in the era of the knowledge economy. This paper critically evaluates this proposition in relation to old industrial regions using the example of Scotland. The paper presents an assessment of, in the first instance, to what extent there is a shortage of skilled, talented and entrepreneurial individuals and, in the second instance, whether a talent attraction strategy alone can hope to attract such people to Scotland. It is proposed that for most migrants the availability of appropriate economic opportunities is a prerequisite for mobility. However, despite uncertain evidence that place attractiveness is a catalyst to mobility among the so‐called creative class, this is not a reason for dismissing talent attraction programmes. Instead it is argued that talent attraction programmes have the potential to contribute to old industrial economies, but their success will be greatest when talent attraction is carefully targeted and based on economic realities rather than the marketing of ethereal conceptions of place attractiveness.

A migration channels approach to the study of professionals moving to and from Hong Kong.

This article evaluates the concept of migration channels, identifying the strengths and weaknesses that have emerged from use of a migration channels framework in international migration research. Using professional migration to and from Hong Kong in the 1990s as an empirical lens, it is argued that the meso-scale understanding offered by examining the effect of migration channels is valuable. This is illustrated in terms of the contrasting channels used by different professions, as well by migrants motivated to move by citizenship as opposed to career reasons. Survey research of migrant engineers and doctors, however, points to the need to recast the channels migration framework in at least three ways, giving stronger recognition to 1) the strategic behavior of migrants themselves, 2) the need for a theorization of the hierarchically ordered economic “space” within which migration channels operate and, 3) the sociocultural context within which constructions of the meaning of migration and place occur.

The labour-market impact of migration to rural areas

Abstract An economic audit of the labour-market impact of in-migration to rural Scotland provides evidence that migrants make rather than take jobs. A survey of 689 households in six study areas selected from across rural Scotland provides the basis for examining the scale and nature of job growth associated with in-migration. Job multipliers are calculated by migrant type and by economic sector.

Reproducing advantage: the perspective of English school leavers on studying abroad

This paper presents results of a questionnaire survey of 1400 Year 13 (final-year) school and sixth-form pupils in two contrasting areas of England, which asked them about their thoughts and plans to study at university abroad. Key questions that the survey sought to answer were the following. How many and what proportion of all higher education (HE) applicants, apply, or consider applying, to university outside the UK? What are their reasons for doing so? What are their distinguishing characteristics as regards type of school (state vs. private), academic record, parental socio-occupational background and prior contacts abroad? The questionnaire data were supported, but occasionally contradicted, by interviews with school staff members responsible for coordinating and advising on the HE application process. Approximately 3% of pupils apply to study abroad (most also apply to UK universities) and another 10% consider applying but do not do so. North America, Australia and Ireland are favoured destinations; not mainland, non-English-speaking Europe. Quality of university and desire for adventure are the most important motivations. Decisions to apply abroad are strongly correlated to the academic results of pupils (the best apply), to prior connections abroad (travel, holidays, residence abroad, etc.) and to a range of overlapping indicators of parental wealth and social class. The theoretical and policy implications of the research are also considered. Study abroad creates an ‘elite within an elite’ and works against government agendas of widening participation. On the other hand, English students’ foreign experience potentially enhances their interculturalism and graduate labour market competitiveness, yet raises spectres of ‘brain drain’ of the ‘brightest and best’.

The role of recruitment agencies in imagining and producing the ‘good’ migrant

This paper focuses on representations of labour migrants and interrogates how such imaginaries shape migrant recruitment and employment regimes. The recruitment and employment of labour migrants inevitably involves a range of knowledge practices that affect who is recruited, from where and for what purposes. In particular, this paper seeks to advance understandings of how images of ‘bodily goodness’ are represented graphically and how perceptions of migrant workers influence the recruitment of workers to the UK from Latvia. The research described in this paper is based on interviews with recruitment agencies, employers and policy makers carried out in Latvia in 2011. The analysis results in a schema of the ‘filtering’ processes that are enacted to ‘produce’ the ‘ideal’ migrant worker. An important original contribution of this paper is that it details how recruitment agencies, in not only engaging in the spatially selective recruitment of labour from certain places but also drawing socially constructed boundaries around migrant bodies, play a key part in shaping migration geographies both in sending and destination countries.

‘Flexible’ workers for ‘flexible’ jobs? The labour market function of A8 migrant labour in the UK

There is considerable academic and policy interest in how immigrants fare in the labour market of their host economy. This research is situated within these debates and explores the nexus between migrant labour and segmented labour markets. Specifically the analysis focuses on East-Central Europeans in Britain: a sizeable cohort of largely economic and recent migrants. A large quantity of interviews with low-wage employers and recruiters is used to examine the role served by East-Central European migrant labour in the UK labour market, to question whether this function is distinct from conventional understandings of the function of migrant labour and to explore how employer practices and other processes ‘produce’ these employment relations. Based on the findings from this approach, an argument is developed which contends that the ready availability of a well perceived cohort of migrant labour has sustained and extended flexible labour market structures towards the bottom end of the labour market.