ABSTRACT
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).
