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Indian Punjabi skilled migrants in Britain: of brain drain and under‐employment

Kaveri Qureshi (Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Oxford University, Oxford, UK)
V.J. Varghese (Central University of Punjab, Bathinda, India)
Filippo Osella (Department of Anthropology, Sussex University, Brighton, UK)

Journal of Management Development

ISSN: 0262-1711

Article publication date: 1 February 2013

2060

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the careers of skilled migrants from Indian Punjab. This study complicates the normalization of skilled migration as a “win‐win” situation by examining the career trajectories of skilled migrants from the Indian Punjab who are trying to establish themselves in Britain.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper examines 20 life history interviews undertaken with skilled migrants from the Indian Punjab to Britain, in IT, media, law and hospitality industries, health and welfare professionals, and student migrants.

Findings

Skilled migrants were able to migrate on their own auspices through migration economies in Punjab. Once in Britain, however, they were directed to universities and labour markets in which they were not able to use their skills. They experienced under‐employment, devaluation of their qualifications and downward mobility, which forced them into ethnic and gendered markets within their home networks and created ambivalence about migrant success and issues of return.

Research limitations/implications

The study emphasizes the need to take a transnational lens when looking at skilled migration, address how migrants’ career trajectories are limited by racism, anti‐immigration sentiment and gender inequality, and consider temporality and uncertainty.

Originality/value

The paper raises questions concerning the ways in which rapidly changing “managed migration” policies in Britain have burdened individual migrants.

Keywords

Citation

Qureshi, K., Varghese, V.J. and Osella, F. (2013), "Indian Punjabi skilled migrants in Britain: of brain drain and under‐employment", Journal of Management Development, Vol. 32 No. 2, pp. 182-192. https://doi.org/10.1108/02621711311305683

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2013, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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