Selecting destination of international migration: the mismatch between hopes and reality of Indian self-initiated expatriates

In the pre-migratory stage, international migrants usually assess the benefits of international migration more positively than when the assessment occurs after the migration experience. These gaps are ordinary and typical for highly skilled migrants originating from the Global South, i.e., developing countries, triggered by a desire for a better life in the more developed countries, i.e., the Global North. The expected outcomes of the migration experience are linked to the perceptions of the country of destination, which is usually higher than it ends up being, leading to unsatisfactory results. Thus, the selection of the destination country is a central decision to explore. This study addresses the questions of how much real quantitative and qualitative benefits accrue from international migration to selected destinations and how destination countries are selected. Understanding the expectations of these modern labour diasporans better is essential for migrants but also for migration policymakers. In this paper, we focus on the Indian self-initiated expatriates who are not protected by corporate assignments and make decisions based on a rationale that deserves investigation. To explore this decision-making process, we examine 'self-initiated expatriation (S.I.E.)' by highly skilled migrants from a set of Indian cities and their migration to other countries considered to be more developed. We investigate the merits and demerits of the S.I.E. decision of migrants. Data collected has been analyzed using proposed ‘improved life’ twin composite indexes, comparing the cities of origin and destination, to understand how the decision taken revealed to be for potential migrants from India. The twin composite city indexes are based on two proposed major S.I.E. orientations: perceived benefits from the differences in local purchasing power (monetary benefits) (L.L.P.) and perceived benefits from the differences in Quality of Life (QoL). We were able to find that there are major gaps between the perceived a priori benefits and the real post-migratory benefits for S.I.E. migrants from India, in both 'monetary' as well as 'quality of life'- terms. We found that although there may be some quantitative benefits, the qualitative arguments indicate that such migration decisions are not significantly beneficial as opposed to the perceptions of potential S.I.E.s. The study also points out that the ‘quality of life’ benefits, however small, weigh over the ‘financial’ benefits’ in most cases of such decisions, which is contradictory to the key assumptions of migration theory building on economic benefits. Surprisingly, even though expatriation decisions would deem a careful thought due to the relevant changes produced in one person’s life, they seem to be more influenced by ‘emotional’ reasons rather than ‘career building’ or ‘risk minimizing’ orientation (Glassock et al., 2015).