Measuring High-Skilled Immigration Policies

Abstract

This chapter introduces an index of states’ openness to high-skilled immigrants (HSI Index), discusses its construction and presents the ranking of OECD countries based on the index. Since an explanation of the variation in the openness of countries’ legislative high-skilled immigration policies is sought, a ranking of these policies is required. There is no such data available, so the index is constructed to fill this data gap. It provides a snapshot of policy differences between countries in 2007 and then again in 2012. The index of states’ openness is further disaggregated into admission mechanism and work permit rights; these are composed of six indicators: numerical caps, labour market test and labour protection, employer portability, spouse’s work rights and permanent residency rights.