Paper short abstract:

The paper argues that the intersection of employment venue and family circumstances rather than ethnic background or citizenship should be given more attention when discussing HSMs’ perceptions of integration and future chances for their remaining in the country or moving elsewhere.

Paper long abstract:

The paper addresses the topic of the panel by focusing on highly skilled immigrants (HSM) to Croatia. While not significant in a numeric (or any other) sense, as a highly diverse group of persons HSM in Croatia present an interesting case for they allow to study how the characteristics such as education and professional experience play out with variables such as employment venue (transnational corporate sector, small scale private enterpreneurship, state/public employment), ethnic background (with or without Croatian background), citizenship (with or without Croatian citizenship), reason and motivation for migration (lifestyle, romance, identification with the country, digital nomadism), family circumstances (with or without family and/or children), length of stay and, last but not least, choice of settlement (capital/other city, medium, small location) to produce various integration outcomes and determine migrants’ futures in the country. Based on in-depth interviews with HSM, it will be argued that the intersection of employment venue and family circumstances, rather than ethnic background or citizenship should be given more attention when discussing not only HSMs’ perceptions of integration but also future chances for their remaining in the country or moving elsewhere.