International Migration Decision-Making and Destination Selection Among Skilled Migrants

Abstract

T his research explored how skilled, self-selected migrants make a decision to leave their country of origin and choose a destination. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with 20 pre-departure and 26 post-arrival migrants to New Zealand from the United Kingdom/Ireland, India and South Africa. A thematic analysis was conducted separately for each country's data. For these migrants, the decision process contained three major decisions: whether, where and when to go. Regarding the question of whether to go, key factors were both intrapersonal and social. New Zealand was selected as a destination of choice due to quality of life, safety, environment, cultural similarity, job opportunities and the perception that migrants were wanted. On the question of when to go, the decision process was a negotiation between partners, and often extended family, which occurred over a long period of time.

A “Good Enough” Choice: Bounded Rationality in Migration Destination Choice

“…It takes the form of acceptance of an accidentally appearing opportunity without considering alternative destinations with unprimed one-step decision makers, of making a decision based on a single, good reason where single-criterion two-step decision makers are concerned, or of adherence to the recognition heuristic as with some two-step decision makers. It also manifests as implicit criteria used by decision makers, leading to a limited set of possible destinations under consideration (as suggested by Roseman 1983 andTabor et al 2015); these are often an effect of cultural constraints. The findings, however, do not lend support to Roseman's assumption that people perform destination selection in an implicit fashion, even when they are not considering migration.…”

“…Research on migration decision-making tends to differentiate between reasons for migration per se and reasons for the selection of the host destination (DeJong & Gardner 1981), though allowing for the possibility that the two decisions are made simultaneously (Roseman 1983). Studies on migration destination selection show that it rarely takes the form of an extensive search through one's 'search space' (Brown & Moore, 1970) and usually the set of alternatives that are considered is small (Roseman 1983;Tabor et al 2015). Roseman (1983) sees destination selection as a life-long, partly implicit process.…”

“…An example of such a multiple-discrete choice situation that is of particular interest to migration scholars is the migration destination choice. The widest choice of destinations, potentially leading to more complex choice situations, arguably applies to North-North migrants, especially the highly skilled, who are likely to enjoy the greatest freedom of cross-border mobility and may potentially choose from the widest spectrum of destinations (Tabor et al 2015). Following Poland's accession to the EU, Polish citizens have joined the privileged group of North-North migrants.…”

“…Adams 2004), while Smallman and Moore (2010) argue that the adoption of a process-focused approach may be a 'valuable adjunct' to the current body of knowledge (see also Svenson 1979). Compared to the research on consumer choice behaviour and tourism destination choice, the course of the process of decision-making has received even less attention in the literature on migration (a notable exception is the study by Tabor et al (2015)). Quantitative migration research has traditionally focused on outcomes of decision processes rather than on the processes as such (and though much rarer, so do qualitative studies, e.g.…”

Modeling American Migration Aspirations: How Capital, Race, and National Identity Shape Americans’ Ideas about Living Abroad

“…Our data come from an original internet survey we commissioned of 1,015 adults ages 18 and older living in the United States that was conducted by GfK Custom Research North America using its web-enabled KnowledgePanel® on July 11-13, 2014. 3 Subtracting all panelists who (Beaverstock 2005;, with migration motivations centered on economic as opposed to noneconomic aspirations (although see Ryan 2008 andTabor, Milfont, andWard 2015).…”