Migration of international students and mobilizing skills in the MENA Region

This paper uses both the descriptive and comparative approaches to provide an overview of migration of international students from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and mobilizing skills in the MENA Region. We fill the gap in the MENA literature and present a more comprehensive and updated analysis of migration of international students from the MENA region. Our findings support the first hypothesis that the number of international students from the MENA region increased substantially over the past years. Our results corroborate the second hypothesis that international students from the MENA region are concentrated in few countries. Our findings support the third hypothesis that skills of international students can be better mobilized in their countries of origin by addressing the push-pull factors that determine migration of skills from the MENA region.

Keywords: migration, international students' mobility, mobilizing skills, MENA region

JEL Classification: J60, J61, I25