Table of Contents
The proportion of skilled and highly skilled Pacific Islanders among all migrants is increasing, as a result of shortages in the receiving countries, some of which — as in New Zealand and the USA — have led to private sector recruitment in the Pacific Islands. Low remuneration, poor promotion opportunities, limited training and further educational opportunities, poor working and living conditions, particularly in remote regions, are push factors for skilled migrants. The growing shortage of skilled workers has also contributed to increased intra-Pacific migration, with workers migrating to countries offering better work conditions and salaries, such as Fijian nurses and teachers migrating to the Marshall Islands and Palau, and tourism workers moving to the Cook Islands.
As metropolitan states have made migration more difficult and sought skilled migrants, illegal migration (and overstaying) and the growing dominance of skilled migration have occurred. Fiji and other island states are now seen in Australia as ‘high-risk’ states because of the extent of overstaying, and there are many illegal Fijian and other overstayers in the USA (e.g., Scott 2003) and New Zealand. Skilled migrants, and particularly skilled health workers, but also teachers (Voigt-Graf 2003) and football players, have made up growing proportions of migrants, especially from Tonga, Samoa and, in the wake of the 1987 and 2000 coups, Fiji. This brain-drain has become critical in some small states.
Skilled workers in general, and medical workers in particular, represent a high proportion of immigrants from island states to metropolitan states because of the increased focus on skilled migration (within declining immigration numbers) in most destinations, and the continued (and increasing) demand for health workers there (see below). Each of the principal destinations for skilled migrants — the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — has the acquisition of permanent skilled migrants as one of the objectives of its immigration policies. Ironically, many of those migrants become part of a ‘brain loss’ or ‘brain-waste’ because their qualifications, despite contributing to gaining them entry, are unrecognised in the destination.
Emigration rates of skilled people have increased steadily in Pacific Island countries, particularly as overseas recruitment occurs, and especially for health workers. As a result, there is a shortage of skilled health practitioners in almost all island states. Doctors are twice as likely to migrate as nurses because wage differentials are greater, and because most nurses are women and men are often the primary decision-makers regarding migration (Brown and Connell 2004). Female Fijian nurses, however, frequently took the decision to migrate autonomously, often leaving their husbands and children behind, mainly for higher wages, but also to escape marriage problems and customary obligations (Rokoduru 2002). The recent migration of teachers and nurses to Kiribati and the Marshall Islands indicates the significance of skilled labour migration within the Pacific region, usually to countries with better working conditions and higher salaries (Rokoduru 2002: 44). Skilled migration is unlikely to decrease, given the significance of skilled worker shortages in each of the ‘standard’ destinations, and increased shortages in newer, more distant markets.