This book brings together perspectives on privileged migration and highly skilled migration, illustrating how these concepts intersect with gender, ethnicity, and life course. Highly skilled migrants are often defined as those who have tertiary education, while privileged migrants possess agency and a relative position of power compared to local communities. Despite their relatively privileged status due to their occupations, these migrants face various barriers in their daily lives. Thus, experiences of privilege and precarity can coexist. Highly skilled migrants can encounter discrimination and employ cultural repertoires to navigate and mitigate these challenges. Drawing on over 70 interviews with highly skilled migrants in Czechia conducted in 2024, this book aims to uncover their lived experiences and coping strategies. This book will appeal to researchers and scholars in sociology and the social sciences more broadly. It will also be of interest to students in migration studies as well as to policymakers in Central and Eastern Europe.

Lucie Macková is Assistant Professor in the Department of Development and Environmental Studies at Palacký University Olomouc, Czechia. Her research examines lived experiences of migration, public attitudes toward immigrants, and perceptions of deservingness, with a focus on highly skilled migration.

Luděk Jirka is Assistant Professor in the Department of Studies in Culture and Religion, Faculty of Education, at University of Hradec Králové, Czechia. His research focuses on ethnicity, transnational migration, lived experience in migration, and Ukraine. 

Ondřej Filipec is Assistant Professor and Vice Head in the Department of Politics and Social Sciences, Faculty of Law, at Palacký University Olomouc, Czechia. His research focuses on migration and various topics related to international security, notably hybrid threats, hybrid warfare, or terrorism.

Nikola Medová is Assistant Professor in the Department of Development and Environmental Studies at Palacký University Olomouc, Czechia. Her research focuses on migration, language, and social integration, exploring how individuals adapt, communicate, and negotiate identity in various contexts.

Nela Przetaková is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Development and Environmental Studies at Palacký University Olomouc, Czechia. Her research focuses on the intersections of gender and skills in highly skilled migration to Czechia.