Since the 1990s, high-skilled migrants from Asia have played a pivotal role in meeting US demand in technology, healthcare, and higher education, contributing to innovation, productivity growth, and improved services across the economy. Restricting these flows may not protect domestic workers as intended, but instead risk reducing long-term competitiveness and shifting talent and cutting-edge activity to other countries.
Editor's note: This episode of VoxDevTalks is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
In this episode of VoxDevTalks, Gaurav Khanna discusses the rise of high-skilled migration from Asia to the US. Drawing on his new paper, Khanna explains how Asian migrants have become central to US technology, healthcare, and higher education – and why current policy debates could have far-reaching consequences.
The popular image of Silicon Valley filled with Indian engineers, Chinese researchers and, Filipino nurses is not just a media trope. Asian-born immigrants account for a small share of the overall US population, but they are “heavily over represented in sectors like software engineering, medicine, and higher education”. Over recent decades, they have made up “a pretty large share of employment growth in exactly these occupations”.
This is not simply a story about migration, it’s a story about how global talent, domestic demand, university funding models, and immigration policy interacted to reshape key sectors of the US economy.
The post-1990 tech and healthcare boom
While migration from Asia has increased since the 1960s, the modern wave of highly educated, STEM-focused migrants is largely a post-1990 phenomenon. Khanna describes it as “really a story that started since 1990”.
The timing coincides with the commercialisation of the internet and the explosive growth of the tech sector. The rise of companies such as Yahoo, Amazon, and eBay created unprecedented demand for software engineers, computer scientists, and researchers. These sectors expanded so rapidly that “domestic training couldn't really keep up”. Training pipelines in high-tech industries take time to adjust, and innovation itself became more skill intensive.
Importantly, the data suggests this was not a simple case of immigrants displacing US-born workers. Khanna notes that in these expanding sectors, employment of native and immigrant workers rose together.
“If it was just a supply shock of software developers, you'd see that more immigrant workers in a sector means fewer native workers.”
Instead, the evidence points strongly to a demand-driven story.
Healthcare presents a parallel case. As the US population aged, demand for medical services rose sharply. Yet the domestic supply of doctors was institutionally constrained. For years, the number of residency slots was effectively capped. By 2021, policymakers recognised a looming shortfall of 125,000 physicians. In this context, foreign-trained doctors became essential, particularly in rural and medically underserved areas. These physicians are now “overrepresented in these underserved areas” and often serve as “the first line of defence” in communities that might otherwise lack specialist care.
Universities as gateways for global talent
A striking feature of this migration is that many skilled workers do not arrive in the US directly into jobs. Instead, they first come as students. International enrolment in US universities, especially in STEM subjects, has expanded dramatically since the 1990s.
One key driver has been funding. Public universities have faced declining state support, particularly during recessions. International students, who typically pay full tuition fees, became a crucial revenue source. As Khanna explains, “international students were cross subsidising local students”. Their fees helped stabilise university budgets and maintain quality, while also enabling expansion in engineering and computer science.
These students were not only a source of revenue but also of talent. They strengthened research departments, filled teaching and research assistant roles, and aligned university output with labour market demand in high-growth sectors. From there, many transitioned into the US workforce, often moving from student visas into H-1B skilled worker visas.
The structure of US immigration policy has reinforced this pathway. While H-1B visas are capped, student visas are not. Graduates from US institutions also benefit from special allocations and temporary work permissions, making higher education a de facto recruitment channel for high-skilled labour.
Why Asia? Scale, skills, and compatibility
Khanna’s research focuses on India, China, South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines. These countries combine large populations with substantial investment in education, particularly in STEM.
“Asia has a unique combination of scale and skills,” Khanna explains. Large cohorts of well-trained students mean that the US can effectively select from “the right tail of that ability and skill distribution” across billions of people.
India stands out due to its strong English-language instruction and well-established engineering education system. China and South Korea rapidly expanded STEM higher education, producing large numbers of technically trained graduates. The Philippines became a major source of nurses and healthcare workers. Across these countries, institutional compatibility with US labour markets made migration smoother.
The result has been a powerful alignment between US demand for specialised skills and Asian supply of highly educated workers.
Do skilled migrants crowd out domestic workers?
In current political debates, one recurring concern is that skilled migrants displace domestic talent. Khanna acknowledges that “crowd out is not at all an unreasonable hypothesis”. However, he argues that the data tells a more nuanced story.
First, many of these sectors are demand driven. Second, skilled migrants often complement rather than substitute for native workers. An influx of programmers increases demand for managers, HR professionals, and other supporting roles. As firms expand, so do employment opportunities across the organisation.
Moreover, innovation generates economy-wide benefits. Skilled migrants are disproportionately represented among innovators and patent holders. Their work leads to new products, improved technologies, and productivity gains.
“Choking off talent doesn't just change who does the work, it can change where the work happens.”
The broader gains include lower prices, better software, and spillovers into downstream sectors such as banking and manufacturing.
In healthcare, the case for crowding out is even weaker when domestic supply is artificially constrained. If the US is not training enough doctors due to institutional bottlenecks, immigrant physicians are filling gaps rather than displacing local graduates.
The value of high-skilled migration to the US economy
Khanna’s research attempts to quantify the economic impact of high-skilled migrants. The findings suggest substantial net benefits.
In tech, H-1B workers contribute not only through direct employment but also via productivity gains and innovation. Native-born workers may shift into managerial or complementary roles. Consumers benefit from better and cheaper technology. Downstream sectors that rely on digital infrastructure also grow faster.
In higher education, international students provide both revenue and talent. By subsidising domestic students and enhancing research capacity, they improve institutional quality and long-term human capital formation.
In healthcare, foreign doctors working in underserved areas improve access and health outcomes, particularly in rural communities.
Taken together, the contributions of skilled migrants span firms, consumers, universities and patients. Their value “shows up across the entire economy”.
A changing policy landscape and global competition for talent
Recent years have seen increased uncertainty around US immigration policy. According to Khanna, there have been “a lot more restrictions and a lot more uncertainty”. Changes to visa processes, higher fees, and hostile rhetoric may deter prospective students and workers.
Uncertainty alone can have lasting effects. If international students doubt their ability to remain and work in the US, the incentive to pursue a US degree diminishes. Enrolments have already begun to fall.
Meanwhile, global competition for talent is intensifying. Canada, Australia, and the UK have traditionally been alternative destinations, although each faces its own political debates. More recently, Asian economies such as China, Singapore, and Hong Kong have actively sought to attract and retain high-skilled workers. In the context of the global AI race, governments recognise that attracting top talent can shape technological leadership.
If the US restricts inflows, talent will not disappear – it will relocate. Some production may shift abroad, and remote work may partially substitute for physical presence. Yet Khanna emphasises that frontier innovation ecosystems such as Silicon Valley rely on dense, in-person networks. In healthcare, services cannot easily be offshored.
The risk, therefore, is not only fewer migrants but a gradual shift in where innovation and growth occur.
What would a smarter immigration policy look like?
Khanna argues that even pre-existing US policy had flaws, but it offered predictability. Restoring certainty is crucial. A smarter policy would align skilled migration with economic demand, maintain clear pathways from education to work, and reduce unnecessary bureaucratic uncertainty.
At the same time, domestic bottlenecks – such as constraints on medical training – should be addressed. Migration policy cannot substitute for institutional reform, but it can complement it.
As policymakers debate the future of immigration, the stakes are high. The past three decades suggest that high-skilled migration from Asia has played a central role in US innovation, healthcare provision, and university excellence. The key question now is whether the US will continue to harness global talent – or whether, as Khanna cautions, restricting flows will ultimately reshape not just who works in America, but where the world’s most dynamic work takes place.