Brain Gain? The impact of 457-visa highly-skilled migration as capital to Australia, insights from Western Australia

Carolina Baos Mallol

In 1996, the Australian government created its first temporary skilled visa programme to attract highly-skilled migrants and address skilled labour shortages in Australia. The 457-visa programme attracted a new wave of (highly) skilled migrants, increasing and reshaping Australia’s human capital landscape. International immigrants bring knowledge and social capital that stimulates economic growth (OECD 2007; Solow 1999). Thus, (im)migrants impact the origin and host countries by sharing their knowledge; in this case knowledge that is part of human and social capital. The correlation between highly- skilled (im)migrants’ capitals and their key impact on Australia has been partially overlooked in Australia’s migration literature. There is a gap in the analysis of Australia’s migration history from the skills perspective of highly-skilled (im)migrants. This thesis helps address the gap in the role of 457-visa highly-skilled migrants as capital to Australia. This study analyses the impact, particularly the key causes and consequences, of 457-visa highly-skilled migration as capital to Australia. Capital is explored through the human and social capital of highly-skilled migration. This study draws upon economic sociology, the sociology of migration and knowledge management to explore the impact of 457-visa highly- skilled migration as capital to Australia, with a focus on 457-visas. The study contributes to these fields in three ways. Firstly, this study examines Australia’s highly-skilled migration through the key causes and consequences from 1788 to 2018, including investigating skilled and highly-skilled (im)migrants’ pre- and post-migration human and social capital. Secondly, a survey of highly-skilled migrants on 457-visas in the Western Australian oil and gas sector provides microdata that explores the value of highly-skilled migrants’ human and social capital to the Australian labour market. Last, the application of Portes’s Economic Sociology conceptual framework widens the current knowledge of the sociology of migration by enriching the understanding of highly-skilled migration as human and social capital. This research challenges the perception that Australia’s migration was unskilled before the 20th century and emphasises that (highly) skilled (im)migrants are conveyors of capital, especially in the form of knowledge. Finally, through the application of Portes’s conceptual framework, I aim to broaden the knowledge of highly-skilled migration as capital. The findings from this study can be relevant for future Australian highly-skilled migration policies.

Brain Gain? The impact of 457-visa highly-skilled migration as capital to Australia, insights from Western Australia

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