Middle Class International Migration: French Nationals Working in the UK

Abstract

International migration researchers have generally focused on either high-level managers and specialists working for multinational corporations, or laborers and blue collar workers who move from developing to developed countries. But international migration patterns are clearly more diverse in composition and structure. Middle class workers who voluntarily leave their home countries in search of white collar positions represent one under-researched group. The few international migration studies that have been conducted for this group have focused on workers from English-speaking countries. This research will concentrate on a significant number of French speakers (up to one-half million), mostly under the age of 35, who have crossed the English Channel to live and work in the United Kingdom. I will examine the mechanisms that facilitate such migration, the kinds of jobs these migrants perform, and how their migration fits in with their long-term employment plans. The majority of French migrants are strongly careeroriented, unlike many of their counterparts from English-speaking countries who emphasize self-realization and exploration. I also explore the question of why EU migration from non-EU countries still exceeds intra-EU migration.

Diaspora strategies in the sending states of Southeast Asia: Rights, skills and questions of value

“…‘Middling’ migrants come from a wide variety of backgrounds and have different trajectories of mobility. Examples include the spouses (usual female) of other high‐skilled migrants (Raghuram & Kofman, ; Raghuram, ; Aure, ), academics and professionals on overseas sabbaticals and exchanges (Conradson & Latham, ), students enrolled in foreign universities who stay on following graduation (Ho, ), young people travelling on ‘work holiday’ programmes (Chen et al ., ; Kawashima, ) and other groups of self‐directed, middle‐class migrants seeking opportunities and experiences abroad (Thomas et al ., ; Mendoza & Guitart, ; Tzeng, ).…”

‘Always on the Move, but Going Nowhere Fast’: Motivations for ‘Euro-commuting’ between the Republic of Ireland and Other EU States

“…Others examine the movement of middle-class European professionals taking up routine white-collar occupations in another EU state (see, for example, Scott 2006;Tzeng 2012;Verwiebe 2008). Others still consider the lives EU retirees who move from the north to the sunnier southern rim of the continentso-called 'heliotropic migrants' (Casado-Díaz 2006).…”