Legal Journals

Addressing Immigrant Overqualification

By rpark

The OECD, a Paris-based organization that aims to facilitate economic cooperation among 30 leading industrialized nations, recently released a report elucidating general trends in immigration in OECD countries. The report found that immigrants in OECD countries are generally better educated than locally-born populations.  Roughly one in four immigrants have earned a university education, compared to the roughly one in five native-born residents who have done so. This is almost universally accompanied, however, by what OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría called the “problem of overqualification”, whereby immigrants find it difficult to find jobs that match their abilities.  Gurría urged OECD countries to put into place policies to alleviate issues underlying the problem, which include language barriers and difficulties in evaluating foreign institutions of higher education. The report also notes the magnitude of the “brain drain”, a term used to denote the massive migration of skilled workers away from poor, undeveloped countries.  The impact is especially stark amongst small African and Caribbean countries, with many having 40% of their skilled workers and 50% of their health professionals living abroad.

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Full post as published by Harvard International Law Journal Digest on February 24, 2008 (boomark / email).