Who has Left, and Who Would Return: Differences between Serbian Highly Educated Emigrants in the USA and Canada

The aim of this paper is to point to the similarities and differences between the highly educated immigrants who had acquired high education in Serbia and emigrated in 1991 or later, based on the data of a large-scale survey conducted in the United States and Canada. The goal of the paper is to provide a better understanding of differences in motives of the highly educated who emigrated from Serbia during this period for choosing the country of destination, as well as in plans for possible return to the country of origin. The analysis shows that the human agency, although strongly influenced by severe political and socio-economic conditions in the country, contributed significantly to the making of a decision to emigrate. The effects of the human agency can be also seen in the analysis of differences in the receiving countries. While respondents in Canada mostly chose economic reasons, for the respondents in the US the most important reasons were related to the desire for professional advancement. Among the respondents in Canada, there was an association between the standards of living satisfaction and the self-realisation within family, whereas in the US there was an association between the views about living standards and achievements in the professional sense