Youth Educational Mobility: The Start of Intellectual Migration

Migration is a complex phenomenon, involving different actors and agents moving in multiple directions. As no single theory can explain all types and aspects of migration, our focus here is on laying down ‘a middle-range theory (that) would allow analysis of the regularities and variations in specific types of migration that share some important common characteristics’ (Castles 2010, 1574–75). Our specific concern is with educational migration and skilled migration, which are highly connected especially in terms of career development. Examining them as a spectrum enhances our knowledge of mobility for purposes beyond immediate economic gain and enriches migration theory. We have therefore proposed a conceptual framework, ‘intellectual migration,’ to capture such dynamics, connecting internal and international migration, student migrants and highly skilled migrants (Li et al. 2015, 2020), with youth migration in education marking the beginning of an intellectual migration process.