Highly skilled portuguese professionals: who are they and what moves them out of the country? profiles, factors and motivations

Abstract

In the context of the financial and social-economic crisis, Portugal has recently been the scene of massive outflow of professionals who seek/find employment alternatives in other countries. Also the young-adults most skilled are being affected by this lack of opportunities. Who they are and what moves this highly skilled population out of the country? Based on the outputs of an online inquiry applied to a wide network of these emigrants with higher education degree, we propose both the understanding of conditions – pull and push factors – as the knowledge of the characteristics, motivations, trajectories, strategies and ways of life of the emigrants` profile.