Trading Places: French Highly Skilled Migrants Negotiating Mobility and Emplacement In London

Transnational mobility among early-career academics: gendered aspects of negotiations and arrangements within heterosexual couples

“…Aside from a few recent and notable exceptions (e.g. Leung 2013, Ryan and Mulholland 2014a, Shinozaki 2014, family migration, tied migration, and larger social networks have largely been ignored in this field of study, while they have been extensively theorised and studied in the gender and migration literature. Social and family networks are considered by the latter as particularly important to understanding why people leave and with whom, who is going where, who does and does not migrate, and in which ways these processes are gendered (Boyle and Halfacree 1999, Dahinden 2010, Kofman and Raghuram 2015, Mahler and Pessar 2006.…”

French connections: the networking strategies of French highly skilled migrants in London

“…The majority of our participants satisfy this definition on both counts; 29 were qualified to degree level or above, and 16 had pursued subsequent education and training in the UK. Twenty currently worked in senior positions in or allied to the financial sector; three in the field of finance law; four in business-related higher education, while the remainder of those in employment occupied a range of highly skilled professional positions (Ryan and Mulholland 2013).…”

Two Perspectives on Family Life Through the Lens of Lodging Type

“…The three women who either did not work at all (Mariana and Elena) or did so at the level they used to work in Romania (Krisztina) had not decided to do this out of a lack of opportunity, but in order to pay more attention to raising their children; hence, they "regard themselves as active players in family migratory strategies" (Ryan and Mulholland 2014, p. 597). Their decision to move was only partly connected to financial opportunity, while they regarded the time spent in Mons "as a prolonged vacation" (Mariana), especially since the majority of jobs or contracts with the NATO base were for a set period and extended periodically, just as in the case of other high-skilled migrants (Ryan and Mulholland 2014). Besides, the opportunity to make trips and simply live in the West-as a new life experience-had been the leitmotif concerning decisions to move to Mons among our participants.…”

“…True, a large majority of the participants in Mons transferred skills across national borders (Ryan and Mulholland 2014), but we could better analyze them through the prism of the "capability approach," which surpasses the "standard" economic view of highly skilled migration (Cencei 2015), given that all participants in Mons (including those who do not work abroad at present) had enjoyed a professional and social life of a high standard. The women also belonged to these privileged categories in Romania (Laura, Dana and Atena) and proved to be worthy of high positions abroad, highlighting the results of other studies that show the rise in the numbers of high-skilled women in the context of migration (Docquier et al 2009).…”