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University of Oxford
School of Geography and the Environment

 School of Geography and the Environment

IGS: Current and Recent Graduate Research

Tanzil Rahman

Maintaining competitiveness in the global market for skilled migrants

Supervisor(s):
Contact Info:
  • Tel: +44 (0)7887 747 134, or +61 (0)424 999 033
  • Postal Address: Hertford College, Catte Street, Oxford OX1 3BW, UK.

Academic Profile

Tanzil Rahman is a Commonwealth Scholar reading for a D.Phil. in Human and Economic Geography focused on competition for skilled migrants between Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. His research seeks to consider government policy factors which influence skilled migrants in their choice of destination country, including taxation and wages policies, and access to citizenship, social services, healthcare, and tertiary education.

Before arriving in England, Tanzil graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in Jazz Performance, and obtained a law degree with first class honours and an economics degree with first class honours and the university medal from the University of Sydney. He has worked as a consultant and policy analyst for the Australian government in relation to welfare reform, in corporate law on mergers and acquisitions and appellate court immigration cases, and most recently, in the Australian Federal Parliament for a Government Senator. In his spare time, Tanzil is a cook, cricketer, and active jazz musician.

Research Overview

Competition for skilled migrants between OECD countries is not new, but increasingly fierce - being almost analogous to similar competition for foreign direct investment in decades past. Growing numbers of educated, able and mobile individuals effectively traverse the world looking for places to settle and build within. The challenge for national governments then, is to find ways to attract and retain these top flight people in a highly competitive and lucrative international marketplace. This challenge is especially significant for traditional immigration nations given the relatively recent emergence of new entrants to the global skilled migration market.

Bearing in mind the aforementioned, this research specifically seeks to examine the relative competitiveness of four nations in the global market for skilled migrants: Canada, Australia, the UK and the USA. These states have been selected for two key reasons - accessibility of quality data, and their aggressive operation of contemporaneous skilled-specific migration policies.

Methodology

To better understand and explain the dynamics of skilled migration - the role of the state, migration policy mechanisms, processing and assessment methods, and which 'push factors' most influence the volume, frequency, duration, and direction of skilled migrant movements - qualitative data will be gathered in the form of interviews with key stakeholders. Informants will include immigration processing staff and migration policy-makers in government, employees from private migration agency firms and professional accreditation bodies, and selected politicians and academics involved in research on skilled migration and global labour competition. Additionally, existing quantitative data from the immigration departments of fieldwork jurisdictions, as well as from the OECD, will be analysed and synthesised to produce policy relevant statistical data exploring the size and direction of skilled migratory flows. It is hoped that the combination of these methods will provide insights for policy analysts and lawmakers as to how countries can most effectively compete in the global market for skilled migrants and seek to service their labour-market demands.