Skilled birds of passage?

The places of Indian and Brazilian migrants on the academic market in Germany

Abstract

In this paper we analyzed the labor profiles of Brazilian and Indian migrant populations in Germany over the past decade, focusing on skilled academic immigration. In the first part, we included data from a third population, the Thai population, as a parameter to identify the transformation of the primary populations in focus. We found that Brazilian labor profile is increasingly resembling that of Indian labor profile, marked by growing skilled immigration in STEM fields, high salaries, and the persistence of a gender pay gap. Next, we examined the academic labor market data and identified a segmentation analogous to that defined by Piore in 1979, where highly skilled immigrants from the Global South are excluded from decision-making positions. Finally, we shed light on gender inequalities, arguing that segmentation affects women at 3 stages: accessing higher education in their home countries; in the migration process, and within a strongly gender-segmented German academia.