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Lässt sich die Zuwanderung von Arbeitskräften steuern, insbesondere die von Hochqualifizierten? Was kann Deutschland von anderen Ländern lernen? Und wie steht es um die Eingliederung von Zuwanderern? Wenige Themen sind so stark von Meinungen, Mythen und Emotionen geprägt wie Migration und Integration. Thesenschau und Faktencheck. (IP)

SummaryIn the context of an emerging focus on highly skilled migration throughout the OECD area, the question under which circumstances migrants can be expected to be relatively skilled is of particular importance. Borjas has analysed the relation between the income distribution and the skills of migrants. His self‐selection model predicts that immigrants from countries with a higher income inequality tend to be negatively selected (i.e., less skilled than the average worker in both host and source countries). According to other models based on the human capital theory of migration, however, migrants can be expected to be relatively skilled. Empirical tests of Borjas' much‐disputed negative self‐selection hypothesis generally rely on immigration data, particularly to the US, and may therefore be biased due to host‐country specifics such as network migration and the impact of migration policy. This paper analyses the relationship between country‐specific emigration propensities and each country's score on various indices of income inequality with a rich international microdata set. The main result is that highly‐skilled persons are more inclined to migrate, though a higher income inequality attenuates the positive selectivity.

ABSTRACTStructural change in OECD countries, emphasizing knowledge‐based sectors, has led to an increasing demand for highly skilled labour. One means of meeting this demand has been to implement a selective immigration policy. Such policies, however, have been criticized for channelling labour into low‐producing sectors and occupations, hampering structural change. Proponents of such criticism point to Switzerland's former policy of channelling immigrants into so‐called seasonal sectors, a practice abandoned in the early 1990s, as having contributed to Switzerland's low growth rates. To assess this, we here analyse the amended migration policy's effects on skill structure and sectoral distribution of immigration flows using data from the Swiss Census of 1990 and 2000 to determine whether the new policy has led to an immigrant inflow more adapted to the processes of structural change.We find that the share of highly skilled immigrants has increased notably under the new migration policy. Our analysis also shows an important change in the sectoral focus of the new arrival inflow. Not only have fewer immigrants been entering declining sectors, but the majority of migrants arriving under the new policy regime have been absorbed into growing and knowledge‐based sectors, meaning they are employed primarily in service and knowledge‐intensive sectors. Overall, the analysis provides ample evidence that the current admission policy as ositively contributed to tructural change in Switzerland.