Carlos Vargas-Silva Professor in Migration Studies

Carlos Vargas-Silva is Professor in Migration Studies and a Fellow of Kellogg College. He has a joint appointment between the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), based at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, and the Oxford Department for International Development.

Carlos was Director of COMPAS from October 2019 to September 2023 and was the (founding) Director of the DPhil in Migration Studies at Oxford from October 2018 to September 2023.

The overarching theme of his research is the interaction of migration with labour markets, public services, and health outcomes, with a key focus on the role of policy in affecting those interactions. An important contribution of his work has been the application of concepts from economics to conceptualise migration decisions and the impacts of migration on host communities in the forced migration context. Bringing additional insights from other social sciences, he has developed conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches to investigate the evidence in this context.

Carlos is also Editor-in-Chief of the journal Migration Studies, published by Oxford University Press.

Carlos teaches in the MSc in Migration Studies at Oxford. He also supervises doctoral students interested in migration (in intersection with labour markets, development, and/or public policy) and welcomes new potential DPhil students interested in these areas. He also works with a vibrant group of post-doctoral fellows and is available for collaboration with early career researchers who want to consolidate their research in these topics.

Recent features: Prof Carlos Vargas-Silva on the politics of box ticking and the many myths around migration, Oxford Profiles

Topics

Asylum and RefugeesLabour Markets