Patterns of Scholarly Migration by Democratic Performance: Evidence from Bibliometric Data

Ebru Sanlitürk , Max Planck Institute for demographic Research
Emilio Zagheni, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR)
Tom Theile, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

As the migration policies of major migrant-receiving countries change and favor high-skilled migration with points-based systems, the UK and Germany being the most recent examples, understanding the determinants of high-skilled migration gains importance. In this study, we focus on a specific group of high-skilled migrants, namely scholarly migration. We seek to understand whether and how democratic performance in a country may have a relationship with the decisions of scientists and researchers to move abroad. We leverage the bibliometric data by Scopus to estimate the country-level scholarly emigration and immigration rates and question if a decline or an improvement in the democratic performance of a country may create a push or pull factor for scholars, respectively. Our study aims to contribute both to the migration literature on the determinants of scholarly migration as a subgroup of high-skilled migration and to policy-making efforts addressing the same group.

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 Presented in Session 54. Flash session International Migration