Kurzbeschreibung

The portability of education and occupational training across national borders is of growing importance for the European Union. On the one hand this applies to migration within the EU and, on the other, to migration into the EU. Anecdotal evidence appears to indicate that portability is in fact limited both within and into the EU but research to verify the notion is surprisingly scant. Using the LFS we want to explore the difference international migration makes for the distribution of occupational levels for any given level of education. The question we pose is this: what levels of employment and what kinds of occupations are the likely consequence of a particular level of education for a) non-migrants in the origin country, b) non-migrants in the receiving country, and c) migrants from the origin to the destination country? We will be looking at migration from Serbia and Turkey to Austria and Germany, from Austria to Germany, and from Germany to Austria. Austria and Germany are not only both long-time members of the EU but also share a common language permitting us to exclude the language factor as a potential cause of educational devaluation. Occupational outcomes will be measured in terms of employment in ISCO-88 major groups of occupations, i.e. one-digit. Education will be observed in terms of ISCED levels. The main thrust of the project will be exploratory, descriptive, and comparative, the purpose being to lay the methodological foundations for similar work on a broader scale. In particular, the project serves to gauge the adequacy of LFS sample size for the task and to determine the extent of aggregation we have to accept. Controlling occupational outcome for age and gender will be desirable but the feasibility of doing so will need to be investigated. The same goes for other control variables that may need to be considered, such as age at arrival and duration of residence in the destination country.