Scottish Graduate Migration and Retention: a Case Study of the University of Edinburgh 2000 Cohort

Abstract

The issue of migration is one which, both from a historical and contemporary perspective, occupies a prominent place with regard to Scotland's development and identity. The historical in-migration and settlement of people from other parts of Europe and further afield-most notably Ireland and Pakistan-has had a significant impact on the character of Scotland and the nature of Scottishness (see e.g. Audrey, 2000; Devine, 1999: 486-522). More recently, the growing number of 'hidden' migrants from England has begun to attract substantial academic attention (Bond, 2006; Bond and Rosie, 2006; Findlay et al, 2004; Hussain and Miller, 2006; McIntosh et al 2004; Watson, 2003) and the contemporary phenomenon of in-migration from the new EU 'accession' states such as Poland may even now be creating settled communities which will be the object of future comment and study. Yet equally significant, both to Scotland's economic and social trajectory and its very self-esteem as a nation, has been the enduring flow of people who have left the country to make new lives elsewhere. Castles and Miller's pertinent question, 'What does it mean for national identity if a country is forced to export its most valuable good-its people-for economic reasons?' (1998: x), is one which has at least a degree of significance for Scotland. Of course, it is important not to overstate the extent to which economic conditions have resulted in 'forced' outmigration from Scotland. It has for long been an industrialized, modern nation, hardly worthy of being characterized as economically 'backward' or even, as was once argued, an 'internal colony' (Hechter, 1975). It has been the economic opportunities offered by Scotland that have largely inspired the substantial flows of in-migration described above. Nevertheless, paralleling this story of economic opportunity and advance there has been an equally powerful countervailing tendency, a notion that Scotland was a country where 'getting out' was often a necessary requisite for 'getting on'. This unusual combination of factors has been labelled by Devine (1992) as 'the paradox of Scottish emigration'. Out-migration from Scotland has taken a number of principal forms. Sometimes it was owed to a combination of poverty and coercion (to a degree at least), as in the well-documented and still controversial Highland 'clearances' which took place in the 18 th and 19 th centuries. While the resultant migration was often contained within Scotland, for some leaving home did mean leaving the country altogether, often for North America (Devine, 2003: 119-140). Equally well-documented is the alacrity with which many Scots moved south to occupy the positions of influence made open to them by the union with England (Colley, 1992: 120-126), and the disproportionately large Scottish contribution to the overseas activities of the empire which grew out of that union (Colley, ibid.: 126-132; Devine, 2003). Then in the postimperial era many Scots continued to exploit colonial avenues of migration, most notably toward Canada, Aust...

Intention to pursue overseas jobs among university students and graduates: a case study from University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

“…Graduates are a major category of skilled migrants (Carrington and Detragiache, 1998;Adams, 2003;Marfouk, 2004, 2006;Dumont and Lemaitre, 2004) and have attracted considerable attention in this context (Faggian et al 2006(Faggian et al , 2007aFaggian and McCann, 2009;Bond et al, 2008) in the recent years. One manner in which attention has been drawn to graduates is in terms of their competitiveness in the global job market.…”

An Audible Minority: Migration, Settlement and Identity Among English Graduates in Scotland

“…We discuss the general findings from the survey and interviews in more detail elsewhere (see Bond et al 2008). However, our interviews also established the significance of connections based on affinity, identity and belonging and, in keeping with our primary focus in this paper, we now turn to examine the data which relate to these themes.…”

“…Also significant is the fact that, within a UK context, there is a dearth of literature and data relating both to graduates' migration and career Our interview findings suggest that motivations for graduate migration can be understood in terms of three groups of factors: the opportunities that are perceived to exist in various geographical places (most clearly represented by the availability and quality of graduate level employment); the connections people have to such places (most significantly through relationships with partners, families, and friends); and the expectations they have for their future lives (most notably with specific respect to our respondents, whether or not they expect to remain in Scotland). We discuss the general findings from the survey and interviews in more detail elsewhere (see Bond et al 2008). However, our interviews also established the significance of connections based on affinity, identity and belonging and, in keeping with our primary focus in this paper, we now turn to examine the data which relate to these themes.…”

Career development and internal migration: a Scottish case study

“…This is a major gap in the literature, especially considering the evidence in the UK context of the ongoing significance of the family home and return migration for many graduates (Sage et al, 2013). More widely there is clear evidence emerging that migration trajectory and economic outcome of graduates (in the UK at least) has some correlation, with the most mobile graduates (those who moved for higher education, and then moved again after graduation) securing the most lucrative employment, and returners (those who moved away for higher education but moved home after graduation) having some of the worst outcomes (Ball, 2015;Bond et al, 2008;McGregor et al, 2002). This raises a range of questions particularly in terms of how career pathways and migration are intertwined at the point after graduation: Why and how do students end up taking the different pathways that they do?…”