Gender, skilled migration and skilled migrants: some European developments

Whilst many European states have begun to open up their labour markets to highly skilled migration of Third Country nationals, the schemes have been largely based on income selection criteria within a broad framework of a knowledge economy favouring scientific and managerial occupations. At the same time, other sources of skilled labour exist, for example that derived from family migrations, the largest source of long-term settlement but usually treated as unskilled. Both aspects have profound gender implications. The gender pay gap amongst the highly skilled and the prevailing gender division of labour in which women, including female migrants, tend to be disproportionately present in regulated professions, result in highly differentiated gender outcomes in the labour market incorporation of skilled migrants. Yet apart from a number of small-scale qualitative and disparate studies, little attention has been paid to gender or equality issues in skilled migration or the experiences and labour market strategies of skilled female migrants. This article argues for a more complex understanding of the incorporation of highly skilled migrants, including its gendered dimension, especially at a time of economic crisis and welfare restructuring.