Asymmetric mobility and emigration of highly skilled workers in Europe: the portuguese case

Emigration is a chronic structural process of the Portuguese society. Th e discussion andkey arguments raised in this chapter are mainly focused on data from a research project on Portuguese skilled emigration. Based on the outcomes of the BRADRAMO2 on-line survey to1011 highly skilled emigrants it can be suggested that recent phenomena in general, and thecrisis that began around 2008 in particular, profoundly transformed the patterns of Portugueseemigration. Nowadays, the country faces a brain drain dynamic that is dramatically alteringthe profi les of national emigrants, emigration destinations, self-identity, and the strategies ofthose who leave the country. Academic mobility, mainly that promoted by the European Union(through grants from the Erasmus Program), created and fostered mobility fl ows that reinforceda latent mobility phenomenon. Once engaged in academic mobility programs, Portuguese higher education students tend to stay in the country of destination or, upon returning temporarily to Portugal, to evince a very strong predisposition to move to a country of the EuropeanUnion. Th e profi le of Portuguese high-skilled emigrants reveals a trend towards a permanentand a long-term (as opposed to a temporary or transitory) mobility, an insertion in the primarysegment of the labor market of the destination countries, a predominance of professionals connected to the academic/scientifi c system and to professions requiring high skills, and a latentmobility (aft er a period of study in the country of destination) rather than direct mobility fl ows(aft er having entered in the employment system of the sending country)