International Mobility and Career Consolidation of European Researchers

This article analyses the effect of geographical job mobility on early career success measured by obtaining an open-ended contract or tenure track position. We use a database of 2,974 researchers that covers five European countries – France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Our results of the effect of different types of mobility on having a permanent position indicate that being a non-mobile researcher grants the early career success of researchers in Europe. We also find that the costs of mobility increase with the number of job experiences abroad, as the negative effect of mobility are stronger for “repeat migrants”. The negative effect of researchers that return to their home countries after a job experience abroad – “returners” – indicates that some mobile researchers prefer to pay a higher mobility cost in order to come back to their home countries. The country effects indicate that career of researchers and academic labor markets differ within Europe substantially. France appears to be a country that most favors the early career success of their researchers, followed by the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany.JRC.J.2-Knowledge for Growt