SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Globalization in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries has been marked by an increase in cross-border mobility of the highly skilled. Though self-initiated expatriation is a widespread phenomenon, it has received relatively little attention in the academic literature. Furthermore, large-scale studies that track self-initiated and organizational expatriates together, over time and across geographies, are noticeably absent from the literature. Consequently, our understanding of these two forms of mobility is relatively limited. This study, which is the first large-scale analysis of the trends in and patterns of the mobility of organization-initiated expatriates and self-initiated expatriates, attempts to fill this gap by analyzing the mobility patterns of 55,915 highly skilled individuals who made 76,660 cross-border moves between 1990 and 2006. Specifically, we analyze patterns of geographic mobility and then examine the rate, duration, and direction of self-initiated and organizational expatriation over time. Finally, we consider demographic differences in mobility between the two groups.