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POPULATION: ‘Brain Drain’ a Headache or Cure?

Haider Rizvi

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 15 2004 (IPS) - When Shailesh migrated to the United States from his hometown in Nepal a few years ago, he worried often how he would find enough work to survive. But within a few months he got the job of his choice, something that many among his fellow immigrants would describe as a lottery ticket.

Indeed, at times Shailesh considers himself to be both lucky and blessed. He works as an aeronautical engineer for a U.S. company, where his compensation is no less than a dream: after paying taxes, he pockets 60,000 dollars a year, an amount he would never imagine making in Nepal.

But the 37-year-old, trained in the former Soviet Union in the 1980s, gets rankled when friends question his decision to serve a private business in the United States.

"It’s my life. I am doing what I got to do," he tells his friends, who believe that a poor country like Nepal needs more of its citizens, like Shailesh, with specialised skills rather than losing them to rich nations like the United States, a phenomenon better known as "brain drain".

Shailesh’s friends accuse him of depriving Nepal of his talent, but he argues that since he sends a significant portion of his income home, he actually contributes to the foreign exchange reserves of the small Himalayan nation, which continues to face an uphill task to address its sheer poverty and now a Maoist insurrection.

Recent studies on international migration suggest that both sides – the opponents of and the apologists for bran drain – could be partly right. For instance, a World Bank study released in June 2003 validated the complaints of economically poor nations that rich industrialised countries are stealing their brilliant and brightest ones away.

"International migration does cause brain drain," wrote Richard Adams Jr, who authored the study, ‘International Migration, Remittances and Brain Drain’.

But not all countries that export highly educated workers face the same problems, he added.

The study, which focused on 24 labour-exporting nations, concludes that brain drain exists only in countries that have small populations or are located close to an industrially advanced nation.

For example, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica – with small populations – and Mexico – which borders the United States – lose their best-educated to industrialised countries, say researchers. So do Tunisia and Morocco in North Africa, because they are near Europe.

But the case of China, one of the largest labour-exporting countries, baffled the researchers. "It has such a large pool of tertiary-educated people that international migration has a relatively small proportional impact on the domestic labour market for the brightest and the best," concludes the report.

The World Bank estimates that between 1981 and 2000, migrant workers (from the 24 countries studied) sent home 36 billion U.S. dollars.

But studies that suggest those remittances strengthen the economies and living standards of labour-exporting countries do not go unquestioned.

Remittances are "mostly used to finance the consumption of basics (such as) staple food, shelter, maintenance and clothing," writes Sam Vaknin in his book, ‘The Labour Divide: Migration and Brain Drain’.

"It is non-productive labour," he argues. "Only a tiny part of the money ends up as investment".

Senior United Nations officials like Joseph Chamie, who has spent years studying population issues, thinks otherwise.

"I have a debate with my economist friends. When this money goes back, it’s usually spent on goods and investment," he says in an interview with IPS.

"One thing is eyeglasses; second, education; third, dental and health care; fourth, clothing. Now what happens to this money? You have to go to a place for eyeglasses; it’s going to be an investment. I can go on giving you so many examples of human capital."

The export of skilled labour from developing countries to the developed world is a "win-win situation", in Chamie’s eyes.

"You should keep in mind what is the overall good for the people," he adds.

That U.N. official suggests that one way to address the grievances of the countries facing brain drain is to work out an arrangement whereby the employers of migrant labourers, not governments, compensate the home countries that provided education and training to their citizens working abroad.

But he admits such a programme would be "difficult" to implement.

By contrast, independent experts like Vaknin suggest the need for multilateral agreements between "brain-draining" and "brain-gaining" countries. Otherwise he warns, resentment "among poorer nations is likely to grow".

Some developing nations have already initiated efforts to reverse the trend, just as in the recent past countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Ireland successfully repatriated their professionals abroad.

In Africa, where many countries face brain drain, Eritrea recently proposing the introduction of a 15,000 dollar ”bond” to guarantee the return of students it sent abroad for higher and specialised education, a multi-million-dollar annual cost to the nation.

Other African nations are trying different methods, such as allowing skilled Africans working abroad to participate in the development of their countries without giving up the better wages and lifestyles of the rich nations they live and work in.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) ran a programme from 1993 to 1998 to assist the return of qualified African professionals from abroad. Funded by the European Union (EU), it helped repatriate about 2,000 skilled professionals to a number of countries. But it could not be sustained due to lack of funds and the high cost of repatriation.

Encouraged by signs of progress in stemming the brain drain in Africa, IOM Director General Brunson McKinley told a U.N. meeting on population last month, "it is time for many poor countries to turn their brain drain into brain gain".

He suggested skilled migrants use their knowledge "for the benefit of the country they have left, whether by returning or by allowing industries to develop through the use of contacts in the more developed countries."