Developing countries lose a significant number of people with the best talents through brain drain. How's the situation in your country? How can it be prevented or reduced? What should be done to reduce the bad effects of brain drain?
Well, I don't inhabit the developing world but, here in the UK, we have suffered our own brain drain post-WW2. Of particular concern has been the loss of doctors and nurses to North America, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere. From the old dominions, traffic has tended to flow both ways, but not so North America. There was a period when some big name academics were also leaving for big pots of American gold but, again, that seems to have been a two way street. No mention of it for quite a while now.
On the health care front the response has tended to be to recruit from overseas. Too often, this is from less developed parts of the world. I say "too often" because I consider it shameful that we take such people away from home countries that need their skills and abilities. Our National Health Service is now a wonderful concoction of lovely people from all over the world! I speak from experience, having recently spent four years in a hospital bed!
Outside of health care, we recruit internationally for many high positions in most industries. And as Britain has increasingly been commercialised, its financial packages have become increasingly valuable. Look at the Premier League's ability to attract some of the most expensive footballers from around the world. You'll get a sense of what's going on in the broader commercial economy!! Expensive international talent. Not always the best quality!
Developing countries have fewer options. Educate noone for higher education with public money, unless they agree to practice in their home country for 5-10 years. Offer the best package you can for longer term stayers: pay, conditions, holidays, earlier retirement with good pensions. Appeal to people's community spirit and love of country. Make home the place to be and stay!
Christopher NOCK
Wondwosen Tamrat , Christopher Nock and readers,
I usually find myself being a bit confused whenever I hear about this issue of brain-drain (especially from the developing to the developed countries).
Young, talented, skilled, highly enthusiastic individuals who are willing to work in most of the developing countries (their own countries to be precise) that usually complain about this brain-drain syndrome are not given the chance to work. Even in cases where they do, the condition of service compared to the skills and training they have acquired over the years (talk of the investment they've actually made in their education) are nothing to be compared.
If the governments of these countries are not employing these people, what do they expect them to do? I am talking from experience, and accounts and witnesses of friends - people who are highly trained in their respective professions.
How do we expect young intellectuals and professionals to stay in their home countries when in fact they are unemployed, underemployed, or conditions of services are not competitive enough?
Some of us (the youth) are doing our best, but what we do is not appreciated in our home countries while at the same time your services may be needed somewhere. Every rational being after weighing the options will move to where there are greener pastures or where conditions are rife for creating these greener pastures themselves.
If we want to stop the perceived brain-drain, must must first create opportunities for the said brains - we must seek to seal all the holes through which the brains are draining.
Assuming Thomas is correct, developing countries also need to be creating good career pathways for professionals.
I get the sense that some countries actively encourage people to move elsewhere for economic reasons. I might be talking nonsense, but the notion seems to be that people earning reasonable money overseas send a decent chunk to help out family at home. If home government do collude for such reasons, that changes the picture dramatically.
NOCK
Christopher Nock and readers,
That is an interesting observation. But how about the idea that some states (particularly the developed Western ones) working through international institutions such as the IMF and World Bank, etc. to put embargoes on hiring/employment in the developing countries (particularly in the public sector) in the name of austerity measures and structural adjustment programs/economic recovery programs just so to lure the affected individuals into their system?
This may sound more like a conspiracy theory but we must not rule that option out either - that is the fact that SAPs and ERPs may be tools for brain-draining.
Well, certainly the Philippines is quite active in helping the NHS recruit nurses, and there whole philippino cultures near our larger hospitals. They're excellent nurses and very lovely people. They're allowed to take quite long breaks to visit it home from time to time. I know a number enjoyable have bought houses and are now settled here. Asfabr as I'm concerned, they're most welcome!
As for your suggestion, I can't imagine the first leads to the second. But the first is true.
NOCK
Thank you Christopher and Thomas for your wonderful contributions and suggestions. Within the context of brain drain, the issues of brain gain and brain circulation are gaining traction in which developing countries are advised to make use of their nationals residing in developed nations. In what ways can these mechanisms become useful strategies since, as you rightly observed, they demand the capacity and readiness of the countries in question.
I can show you some results that I have achieved: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326424050_Brain_Drain_Brain_Gain_and_Brain_Return_Explained_by_a_Model_Based_on_a_Comparable_Individual_Country's_Well-being_Indicator_LISE_Working_paper
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