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Careers of Skilled Migrants
Edited by Akram Al Ariss, Iris Koall, Mustafa Özbilgin, and Vesa Suutari
Introduction
This paper examines the careers of skilled migrants from Indian Punjab, a group significant both in number and in their reputation for "success". With more than a million skilled migrants living overseas, India is second only to Britain and the Philippines in the numbers it contributes to skilled migrant flows ([24] Skeldon, 2005, p. 11). Since the late 1990s, Indian-skilled migrants have become an increasing presence in European countries facing skill shortages, particularly Britain, France and Germany ([10] Khadria, 2008). Indian-skilled migrants are seen as proficient high-tech workers destined to succeed in western countries. As witnessed in the German protests against government efforts to recruit-skilled labour from overseas, they have also been feared as such: "Kinder statt Inder" (jobs for our children, not Indians) ([14] Poros, 2001, p. 243). This paper questions the assumption of Indian-skilled migrants as a privileged group. It seeks to specify the features of Indian Punjabi-skilled migration flows in Britain, and explore the relationships between migration histories and career trajectories. As such, it contributes to a literature on skilled migrants that critiques the narrowness of human capital theory and finds inspiration in Bourdieuian sociology, but suggests refinements to this body of work as well as practical implications that remain to be addressed.
Britain has come to see skilled migration as an asset. The labour government in 1997 introduced the first major shift towards "managed migration" since the 1960s, embracing the potential for skilled migrants to fill shortages in key sectors such as IT, health, engineering and teaching ([25] Somerville, 2007). First there was an increase in immigration through the work permit system. In 2002, the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP) was launched, which introduced a "points-based system" to attract high-earning candidates in sectors such as medicine, finance, business and IT. By 2005, India was the largest national group in issues of work permits, with 29,261 (39 per cent of the total), and in HSMP visas, with 6,716 applications approved to Indian nationals (38 per cent of the total) ([19] Salt and Millar, 2006, pp. 344, 349).
In India, too, the emigration of skilled workers has come to be seen as a national asset ([10]...