Conceptualising International Skilled Migration and Mobility, Transformational Change and Impacts in Southern Nigeria

Ijeoma Onyeahialam, University of Bristol

This mixed methods case study focuses on the typologies of international skilled migration from Nigeria, explores how personal motivations and skill sets have shaped decisions to migrate, choices of pathways and routes to destination countries as well as facilitated “forms” of return migration. It also explores the nuanced features of the different forms of migration, global mobility amongst the participants from the case study, and how it differentiates from existing empirical evidence. Also examined are the consequences and impacts of these migration forms in Nigerian communities. Evidence shows that respondents researched opportunities to migrate and equipped themselves with adequate resources to enable them migrate and settle to the best of their capacity with this knowledge. They are aware of the various migration pathways linked to their motivations to migrate, their professional qualifications ahead of migrating, what needed to be done to acquire a legal stay in destination country and the potential outcomes of these pathways. The evidential transformational impacts are enhanced Health care provision and delivery, economic transformation, extended human capital development, Knowledge and Skills Transfer, housing development and enhanced labour markets. This paper forms part of a larger project (GLOBAL-RURAL) that looked at globalisation and rural communities

Keywords: International Migration, Mixed methods research, Population and Development, Human Capital, Education, and Work

See extended abstract.