Tina Dulam graduated as a BSc in Economics from the Anton de Kom University of Suriname and as Msc. in Economics and Business from the Erasmus University Rotterdam School of Economics. At the same university she obtained her PhD degree on the migration of the highly skilled: the case of Suriname. 

Tina Dulam is a lecturer at the section Applied Economics of Utrecht University School of Economics. She is also affiliated as a researcher to the HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht. Her research area of interest is human capital formation, labour economics, and international migration with a focus on diaspora economics. She is involved in two research projects at the moment:

Diaspora economics  

Suriname is characterized by a high degree of brain drain. Recent exact figures on brain drain are not available, but concerns are that the figures are on the rise due to the deterioration of the economic situation in recent years (GDP per capita growth of -4% and a yearly inflation rate of 50% in recent years (The Worldbank, 2022)). Since 2020 the country is carrying out an economic recovery programme led by the IMF. The government of Suriname encourages Surinamese in diaspora to return and contribute to the home country. There are some attempts between the Surinamese and Dutch government to contribute to the skill shortages. In this respect the Surinamese government founded a diaspora institute. However policies regarding brain drain or brain circulation (the circular movement of skilled labour across nations) remain limited without data. The aim of this project, that is carried out together with Maurits de Haan, is to set up a panel survey that measures the preferences, behaviors, opinions regarding diaspora policy, and also the education and labour market outcomes of Surinamese in diaspora over time. The results of the panel survey may shape diaspora policies that can be beneficial for both the origin and destination country of emigrant communities. 

Skills mismatch 

Research shows that that the migrants’ skills are generally more often underutilized than that of natives. Migrants are more likely to hold jobs that require less education or lower skills proficiency than what they actually possess; in other words migrants tend to be overmatched or over-skilled more often. Dulam studies what role education plays in explaining skills mismatch and whether training can decrease observed mismatch on the labour market. In this project, she makes use of data from the International Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) of the OECD. 

Teaching

Tina is currently involved in the Bachelor courses: Introduction to Economics and Business Economics, Introduction to Applied Data Science, Algorithms and Data Analytics, and Applied Economics Research Course. She also supervises students on their graduating paper (thesis). Furthermore she is the course coordinator of the Masters course: Policy Evaluation Skills – Research Project.