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This paper analyzes the role of academic mobility to the United States of Argentinian researchers in exact and natural sciences as well as its implications for starting a career in Argentina’s main research council. To this end, we present some quantitative indicators and analyze data from 40 semi-structured interviews on the subjective perceptions and the sedimented steps of individual career paths. Finally, we discuss the recent evolution of the academic job markets in the United States and Europe as well as the incentive systems and career opportunities within the Argentinian academic job market.

JT00176419 STI Working Paper SeriesThe Working Paper series of the OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry is designed to make available to a wider readership selected studies prepared by staff in the Directorate or by outside consultants working on OECD projects. The papers included in the series cover a broad range of issues, of both a technical and policy-analytical nature, in the areas of work of the DSTI. The Working Papers are generally available only in their original language -English or French -with a summary in the other.Comments on the papers are invited, and should be sent to the Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry, OECD, 2 rue André-Pascal, 75775 Paris Cedex 16, France.The opinions expressed in these papers are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the OECD or of the governments of its member countries.http://www.oecd.org/sti/working-papers AbstractThis paper presents the main trends in respect of the supply of human resources in science and technology (HRST) in Latin America and the international mobility of its highly skilled labour. This will be done through the identification of potential data sources, followed by a presentation of indicators drawn from these sources. In addition, a short section is devoted to the main policy aspects surrounding these issues.The section on policy issues will show that the main South American countries have in common a lack of strong or efficient policies for the migration of highly skilled human resources, although in recent years important changes have occurred in some of the countries of the region.Available information sources on highly skilled labour and international mobility in South American countries are similar to those from OECD countries as far as the main types of collected data is concerned. Potential sources are labour force surveys, population censuses, household surveys, data from the higher education system and from migration departments. However, the quality, coverage and availability of information is inferior to that of OECD countries. Science and technology tend to be marginal or absent in the government agendas in the region, which impedes obtaining basic and statistically reliable data.The available indicators show a massive expansion of the higher education sector, in numbers as well as in diversity of the offer of courses. The number of students enrolled in Latin America and the Caribbean increased from about 260 thousand students in 1950 to about 9 million in the year 2000. The number of graduates increased significantly as well, by around 50% between 1990 and 2001. However, this expansion was not accompanied by the creation of jobs requiring corresponding qualifications. For example, the United States employs 9 times as many researchers as Latin American and Caribbean countries. As a result, there has been a marked increase of unemployment of professionals, salaries have fallen and professionals and technicians are working in jobs for which they are overqualified.Co...