Introduction

In recent years, the movement of highly skilled migrants has become an important worldwide issue, as it is assumed to reflect the impact of globalisation on the world's economy and the development of communications technology (Salt & Findlay 1989; Salt 2006; Pethe 2007). Based on the supposition that a high level of human capital is positively correlated with having high economic and social status (Becker 1969), qualified immigrants should be able to be incorporated into the host country's labour market relatively successfully. Yet it seems that the process of immigrants’ socio-economic incorporation into their new country of residence involves greater recognition and translation of possessed qualifications, since their skills have been acquired in different national contexts where the languages, the education system and the labour market differ from that of the host country. The employability and socio-economic status of particular qualified immigrants largely depends on the transfer, translation and recognition of their human capital value (Jones 1996).

Recent Home Office research concerning EU post-enlargement migration from Poland to the United Kingdom emphasised that although almost half of the Polish migrant workers are well-educated (e.g., around 40 per cent of Polish migrants hold university diplomas), they mostly work in low paid and low-skilled positions, including as factory process operatives (19 per cent), kitchen and catering assistants (9 per cent), packers (6 per cent), or room attendants (6 per cent) (Home Office 2008). Thus, recent EU post-enlargement migration from Poland to the United Kingdom is marked by a high rate of human capital wastage, as most of highly skilled migrants cannot make use of their qualifications and skills.

The aim of this chapter is to look at new patterns of migration from Poland to Scotland within the broader context of the migration of highly skilled individuals. By analysing the social processes involved in the economic incorporation of skilled Polish migrants, the key question we seek to address is the extent to which contemporary migration from Poland to Scotland can be viewed as brain waste, brain gain, brain overflow or a brain drain. The notion of brain drain refers to the significant outflow of highly skilled individuals while emphasising that the exodus of skilled migrants slows down economic growth of the sending country due to the reduction of the sending country's human capital (Adams 1968; Benchhofer 1969; Das 1971; Grubel & Scott 1997; Beine, Docquier & Rapoport 2001).