Transcript Scottish Graduate Migration: barriers to belonging?

Scottish Graduate Migration:
barriers to belonging?
Ross Bond
School of Social and Political Studies
University of Edinburgh
Scotland’s demography: 3 key features
• Long-term projection of population decline and
ageing, despite recent reversal of net out-migration
• While immigration policy is ‘reserved’ to Westminster,
Scottish Executive has taken steps to encourage
immigration, and is supported by a broad political
consensus
• But some aspects of public attitudes to in-migrants
and ‘minorities’ suggest less welcoming popular
opinion
Focusing on ‘the English’ as Scotland’s
largest ‘minority’
• 2001 Census: 8% of population of Scotland born in
England
• 2003 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey: only a minority
(44%) would definitely or probably accept that
English people living in Scotland can lay claim to a
Scottish identity
• 2003 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey: 80% have
English friend or family member, but most think that
primary loyalty of English-born in Scotland is to
England. A third also see in-migration of English born
as threat to Scotland’s identity
Student and graduate migration to and
from Scotland: secondary data
• Around 1/4 of all students at higher education
institutions in Scotland come from other parts of the
UK or from overseas
• 6 months after graduation, 80% of employed
graduates from Scottish HEIs were working in
Scotland
• This figure rises to 90% of those who originated from
Scotland but only 1/3 of those from other parts of the
UK and less than 1/4 of those from other EU states
• 2001 Census showed a net out-migration from
Scotland of more than 4,000 degree-qualified people
to other parts of UK in the preceding 12 months
A Case Study of the University of
Edinburgh 2000 cohort:
patterns of migration
• 70% of respondents who originated from Scotland
were living there 5 years after graduation (in 2005),
but 79% of those from outside Scotland had left
• Around 1/7 were ‘delayed’ migrants and a similar
proportion ‘return’ migrants
A Case Study of the University of
Edinburgh 2000 cohort:
motivations for migration
• Opportunities, Connections and Expectations
• Connections: families and relationships are most
important, but so too are affinity and belonging
• Positive connections with Scotland:
adult ‘socialization’
Scottish partner or family
employment in Scottish institutions
rural and urban environments
friendliness of people
Barriers to Belonging?:
identity-based exclusion
‘INT: And do you feel Scottish now or would you say you
feel at all Scottish?
RES: No. I don’t think I would ever really feel Scottish. I
think because I’ve got, well with my dad being Welsh and
things, I feel British probably more than anything else.
And it’s kind of weird but I think part of the reason I
would never really feel Scottish is because I don’t really
think other people would ever really see me as Scottish,
you know, it just wouldn’t really. So I still really think of
myself as being from Yorkshire but British. But I think
Scotland is home now I suppose’
Barriers to Belonging?:
identity-based exclusion
‘I always, maybe it’s strange but I always get annoyed
when, not in this context obviously, but like when people
accentuate the fact that you’re different you know, that
you’re Norwegian, you’re not quite Scottish and it’s like,
well I live here – that’s Scottish enough for me’.
‘… I never really strongly thought of myself as English,
because both my parents were Scottish so obviously I
was Scottish as well. That seemed fairly self-evident to
me when I was little. Since I’ve come here I have
modified that slightly just because I think, because of
other people’s assumptions, because when you speak in
an English accent then you’re English’
Barriers to Belonging?:
discrimination-based exclusion
• The complexity of ‘Anglophobia’: experience of
discrimination varies between individuals and groups
• Social class and regional origins are significant
• Experiences of discrimination need not undermine
connections
Barriers to Belonging?:
discrimination-based exclusion
‘That’s the one thing that when you were asking about
where you feel more at home, that’s the one thing that
slightly holds me back from feeling completely at
home in Edinburgh, and that I would seriously think
about if I was going to move up there. Because I did
feel like, not with everyone at all obviously, but quite
often actually there was a slight antagonism towards
English people. And it might be partly because I’ve
got quite a posh English accent, I don’t know. I think
friends of mine who were from Northern England
didn’t have such difficult times’
Conclusions
• Barriers to belonging may place Scotland at a ‘net
disadvantage’
• Many features of Scotland make it an attractive
destination for in-migration and enable positive
connections to be fostered
• But ‘belonging’ needs to be further facilitated if the
Scottish Executive’s programme of ‘demographic
nationalism’ is to succeed