Scottish Graduate Migration: barriers to belonging?

1. Scottish Graduate Migration: barriers to belonging? Ross Bond School of Social and Political Studies University of Edinburgh

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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’

8. 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’

9. 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

10. 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’

11. 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