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The initial occupational placements of male immigrants in the United States labor market vary significantly by country of origin even when education and other individual factors are taken into account. Does the heterogeneity persist over time? Using data from the 1980, 1990, and 2000 Censuses, this paper finds that the performance of migrants from countries with lower initial occupational placement levels improves at a higher rate compared with that of migrants originating from countries with higher initial performance levels. Nevertheless, the magnitude of convergence suggests that full catch-up is unlikely. The impact of country specific attributes on the immigrants' occupational placement occurs mainly through their effect on initial performance and they lose significance when initial occupational levels are controlled for in the estimation.

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[The authors] exploit the bilateral and skill dimensions from recent data sets of international migration to test for the existence of Zipf's and Gibrat's Laws in the context of aggregate and high-skilled international immigration and emigration using graphical, parametric and non-parametric analysis. The top tails of the distributions of aggregate and high-skilled immigrants and emigrants adhere to a Pareto distribution with an exponent of unity, i.e. Zipf's Law holds. [The authors] find some evidence in favour of Gibrat's Law holding for immigration stocks, i.e. that the growth in stocks is independent of their initial values and stronger evidence that immigration densities are diverging over time. Conversely, emigrant stocks are converging in the sense that countries with smaller emigrant stocks are growing faster than their larger sovereign counterparts. Lastly, high skilled immigration and emigration stocks expressed in levels or as densities all exhibit signs of convergence. [The authors] conclude by discussing some competing mechanisms that could be driving the observed patterns including: differing fertility rates, reductions in emigration restrictions, migrant sorting and selective immigration policies, immigrant networks and persisting wage differentials.

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Discussions of high-skilled mobility typically evoke migration patterns from poorer to wealthier countries, which ignore movements to and between developing countries. This paper presents, for the first time, a global overview of human capital mobility through bilateral migration stocks by gender and education in 1990 and 2000, and calculation of nuanced brain drain indicators. Building on newly collated data, the paper uses a novel estimation procedure based on a pseudo-gravity model, then identifies key determinants of international migration, and subsequently uses estimated parameters to impute missing data. Non-OECD destinations account for one-third of skilled migration, while OECD destinations are declining in relative importance.

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Migration presents a stark policy dilemma. Easing immigration restrictions is one of the most effective tools for ending poverty and sharing prosperity across the globe. Yet, we see widespread opposition in destination countries, where migrants are depicted as the primary cause of many of their economic problems, from high unemployment to declining social services. This report addresses this dilemma. In addition to providing comprehensive data and empirical analysis of migration patterns and their impact, the report argues for a series of policies that work with, rather than against, labor market forces. Policy makers should aim to ease short-run dislocations and adjustment costs so that the substantial long-term benefits are shared more evenly. The report aims to inform and stimulate policy debate, facilitate further research, and identify prominent knowledge gaps. It demonstrates why existing income gaps, demographic differences, and rapidly declining transportation costs mean that global mobility will continue to be a key feature of our lives for generations to come.

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This research and policy brief presents measures of labor market exposure to [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 in the European Union (EU) by identifying jobs in non-essential industries that cannot be performed from home. Jobs most at risk account for 30 per cent of all EU employment. These jobs are concentrated in lagging regions; tend to be low paid and less secure; and are disproportionately held by young, poorly educated workers and migrants. In the absence of urgent large-scale remedial action, the COVID-19 crisis is likely to exacerbate pre-existing socioeconomic and regional disparities.

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This paper presents new estimates of the share of jobs that can be performed from home. The analysis is based on the task content of occupations, their information and communications technology requirements, and the availability of internet access by country and income groupings. Globally, one of every five jobs can be performed from home. The ability to telework is correlated with income. In low-income countries, only one of every 26 jobs can be done from home. Failing to account for internet access yields upward biased estimates of the resilience of poor countries, lagging regions, and poor workers. Since better paid workers are more likely to be able to work from home, [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 is likely to exacerbate inequality, especially in richer countries where better paid and educated workers are insulated from the shock. The overall labor market burden of COVID-19 is bound to be larger in poor countries, where only a small share of workers can work from home and social protection systems are weaker. Across the globe, young, poorly educated workers and those on temporary contracts are least likely to be able to work from home and more vulnerable to the labor market shocks from COVID-19.

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The Database on Immigrants in OECD countries (DIOC), undertaken by the OECD, was first released in 2008 based on 2000/01 census rounds. It was then updated utilising data around 2005/06 with the final round being compiled using data circa 2010/11. DIOC provides a detailed picture of the main characteristics of migrants by country of origin. Taking advantage of the availability of data in three different points in time, the updated database allows addressing various questions such as the following: How did migrant populations change over time? Particularly, what are the key origin countries of migrants in the OECD destinations? To which extent do recent migrants differ from the earlier cohorts? How did the financial crisis of the last decade affect international migration patterns? Which countries of origin have been mostly affected by the crisis? Which countries receive the largest share of highly educated migrants? Do migrants fare better or worse than their native-born workers in the labour markets? What is known about brain drain and its evolution by country of origin? What are the patterns in female migration, in particular, for tertiary educated women? The purpose of this paper is to present the basic findings drawn from the updated DIOC 2010/11. The first section of this paper presents DIOC in detail, its key variables and country coverage, as well as the evolution of migration patterns over time. Section two describes migrant populations both by country of destination and country of origin around the years 2010/11. Section three exploits the time dimension of the database to examine migration trends between 2000/01 and 2010/11. Section four focuses on data for 2005/06 and 2010/11 to present an analysis of the impact of the global economic crisis on international migration and the labour market outcomes of migrants. Section five presents the evidence on emigration rates and emigration rates of the highly skilled at the regional and country levels. The last section concludes with further remarks about the future development of DIOC.

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The global distribution of talent is highly skewed and the resources available to countries to develop and utilize their best and brightest vary substantially. The migration of skilled workers across countries tilts the deck even further. Using newly available data, the paper first reviews the landscape of global talent mobility, which is both asymmetric and rising in importance. Next, the determinants of global talent flows at the individual and firm levels are presented and some important implications are sketched. Third, the national gatekeepers for skilled migration and broad differences in approaches used to select migrants for admission are reviewed. Looking forward, the capacity of people, firms, and countries to successfully navigate this tangled web of global talent will be critical to their success.

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This publication examines the trends, determinants, and impacts of migration of high-skilled workers within the European Union in the past two decades. High-skilled migration, whether internal or international, is largely a symptom rather than a cause of the gaps in labor market and educational opportunities, productivity, welfare, and the quality of institutions across the regions. Free movement within the European Union is an incentive for workers and firms to take advantage of these gaps by moving from low- to high-productivity sectors and regions. This process, however, results in winners and losers depending on the extent of the complementarity and substitutability between migrants and natives and on the capacity of the sending regions to realize benefits from return or circular migration and other knowledge spillovers.

This study assesses the economic benefits and the costs of skilled migration in the short and long runs, emphasizing the potential implications of a large outflow of highly qualified workers on the economies of the originating regions. The study uses empirical analysis to present recommendations for labor market and education policies and identify effective ways to address the various costs that migration induces among different skill groups within regions that send migrants and those that receive migrants. These methods must also improve cross-country coordination to more effectively unlock the overall benefits of migration.

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