Territorial Review Copenhagen - Region Hovedstaden

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Attraction of high-skilled people
Denmark has fewer international students than many other OECD
countries, with only 4.4% in tertiary education in 2005, against 6.7% in the
OECD as a whole. Copenhagen scores somewhat higher than the national
average, and the University of Copenhagen includes 6% foreign students,
but this is still low from an international perspective. 22 The IT University of
Copenhagen, with 32% foreign students, is an exception, but its student
body represents a very small part of students in Copenhagen. A similar
pattern can be found with respect to foreigners engaged in research:
foreigners‘ participation in advanced research programmes was 6.9% in
Denmark, but 16.5% in the OECD countries as a whole. The increase in the
number of foreign students has been slower than on average in the OECD:
the share of international students in Denmark has increased 35% over the
period from 2000 to 2005, as compared with 49% in the whole of the OECD
(OECD, 2008). Inflows of foreign students appear to be important in
attracting highly skilled people: research on the United States over the
period 1971-2001 suggested that the number of foreign students is an
important predictor of subsequent migration (Dreher and Poutvaara, 2005).
This is all the more important for Denmark and Copenhagen given the
labour market shortages.
Copenhagen attracts relatively few foreign workers by comparison with
other cities in the world. Its share of foreign population is relatively low and
dominated by non-Western immigrants who came to Denmark as refugees
or in the context of family reunification, rather than because of their skills or
the needs of the domestic labour market. The flows of highly skilled
immigrants into Copenhagen are limited. The current relative inflows of
foreign nationals into Denmark are close to the average in the OECD, an
inflow of 39 immigrants per 1 000 of population in 2006. Recent years have
seen an increase, with a 21% growth in inflows over 2003-06, as compared
with only 5% in the OECD as a whole. The inflow to Denmark in 2006
amounted to 21 700 people, but not all of these were admitted for workrelated
reasons. Although this inflow is higher than in previous years, it is
lower than the inflow before 2003 (OECD, 2008).
Relatively few of the foreigners that Denmark attracts are highly skilled.
Although the number of work permits has increased over the last decade,
and inflows of immigrants are directed more towards labour market needs,
the share of high-skilled labour flows remains average, with many of these
permits given within the construction sector. Denmark‘s share of immigrants
with tertiary education is 19%, as compared with 25% in the OECD as a
whole. Among OECD countries, Denmark has one of the lowest rates of
employed professional and technical migrants as a percentage of total
employed professionals and technicians (OECD, 2008), and is not among