Brain Drain

Social Factors Driving Brain Drain

Brain drain is driven by demand for skilled labor. Underlying social factors that motivate brain drain include poverty, economic depression, low pay, currency devaluation, crisis and conflict, political chaos and corruption, crime, falling educational standards, inadequate infrastructure, services and health care, and environmental collapse. Host countries attract skilled workers with their robust economic outlook, higher salaries, quality schools, strong infrastructure and services, and social stability and mobility. Sixty percent of world migrants move to developed countries; the remainder is between developed countries. There is limited migration from developed countries to developing ones. Ninety percent of highly skilled migrants live in the nations of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development; of this population, 85 percent live in the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom (UK), Germany, and France. Seventy percent of temporary migrants in the United States are highly skilled, whereas they form only 40 percent in the UK and Canada and 15–30 percent in France.

This asymmetrical skill flow is attributed to the lower linguistic adjustment required of migrants moving into countries where the lingua franca English is spoken. Brain drain severely impacts sub-Saharan Africa, Caribbean islands, India, China, Vietnam, Pakistan, Indonesia, and former Soviet states. Key industries damaged by brain drain include health and medicine, business services, banking and finance, computers and information technology, and industrial high tech. Between 1990 and 2000, international migration expanded by 14 percent, and the result was an increase from 154 million to 175 million people living in host nations. The brain drain is more extensive today than two decades ago because skill-selective immigration policies in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States attract the top workers.

Crisis and Political Influence

Crises or major political shifts encourage brain drain. For example, due to political upheaval between 1989 and 1997, 233,000 South Africans permanently emigrated to the UK, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Due to economic and environmental problems, 80 percent of skilled workers have left the small Caribbean-basin countries of Guyana, Jamaica, Haiti, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, producing one of the most brain-drained regions in the world.

Migration is motivated by the income differential between developing and industrialized countries. Nigerian medical schools and hospitals have lost many of the most talented practitioners because they receive far better salaries in countries like Saudi Arabia. Working conditions and equipment in developing countries are often inadequate, leaving human talent and potential underutilized. Engineers, scientists, and researchers from India, China, and Korea have moved to countries like the United States in great numbers to take advantage of better pay, benefits, and living conditions. Migration networks form and stimulate community migration; a sequential migration chain emerges, with settled migrants housing new arrivals. Generalized reciprocity supports migrants until they are self-sufficient.

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