By: Sadwika Salain
Brain Drain
Brain drain impacts are not experienced equally across the developing world. While majority of the third world-countries in Africa are suffered, most Asian countries find that this migration is lucrative. This essay will, first, give definition and overview about brain drain and then present the countries in Africa and Asia whereby these phenomena are prevalent. Furthermore, this essay will compare and contrast short-term and long-term impacts of brain drain in stimulating the rise of new skilled workers and fostering economic growth of the home countries. In the end, it will suggest that although this migration may exacerbate the economic decline in many countries, in particular in Africa, brain drain should not be restricted as it might be beneficial in the future.
The term “brain drain” was initially introduced by The Royal Society in the UK to describe the migration of European scientists and engineers to the US and Canada in the early of 1960’s (Aráuz& Torres, n.d). Although skilled workers, another common term for brain drain, has been proclaimed and associated to the migration of high skilled and educated human capital for more than five decades, there is no precise quantification on individual’s skills which can be used to distinguish between brain drain or “just” migration. The closest and more specific limitation of the skills and education was cited by Ozden as:
“skilled workers are those with an average education of at least 16 years, and include managers, accountants, engineers, social workers and teachers, medical and legal professionals, and scientists“ (Özden, 2005).
Another interesting definition is published by Encyclopedia Britannica, which narrows brain drain as:
“Departure of educated or professional people from one country, economic sector, or field for another, usually for better pay or living conditions”.
Despite Encyclopedia Britannica points out that searching for better pay and living condition is the ultimate reason of this migration, practically, every individual have distinctive reasons to migrate. Of these causes, they can be generalized into two groups, push and pull factors. The push factors are a condition because of which skilled and educated workers are forced to leave their home countries. These are closely linked to woeful circumstances as a result of corruption, contagious diseases, war and other form of conflicts. Those of African-origin migrants, in general, leave their countries mainly due to these factors. The second category is pull factors. Vice versa to the first group, the pull factors are associated with attractive conditions in the destination countries such as much better earnings, wide variety of job opportunities, better career, education as well as security. For this motivation, most of Asian skilled workers are likely to migrate.Perhaps, these two distinct factors will play important roles in determining the impacts of brain drain towards the sending countries, both in the short-term and long-term.
The short-term impacts of brain drain in African and Asian countries are not experienced equally. Most of the sending countries in Africa seem to suffer from brain drain. To take several examples, Nigeria, Mozambique and Ghana are three countries in Africa which have the highest outflow rates of their skilled workers. According to the most recent data, the proportion of migrated skilled workers from Mozambique and Ghana contributed to 30% and 26% of the total skilled employees in these countries respectively (Docquier&Marfourk, 2005). Although the proportion of skilled workers in those three countries is unknown, it is believed that it will not be much higher than those of Africa (2.8%)(Aráuz& Torres, n.d).This is an extremely large exodus which will adversely influence their domestic development due to the subsequent scarcity of capable human resources. A case in point is exodus of medical personnel in Ghana. Since many medical personnel abandoned their working place and migrated overseas, mainly to Europe and the US, many hospitals were forced to close (Yeboah, n.d).As a result, many ill-people did not get sufficient medical treatments. For this specific case, direct impact of brain drain not only severely deteriorates the economic decline of Ghana, but also it might even jeopardize the contingency of Ghana as a nation.
Totally opposite story was experienced by many Asian countries. The migration of skilled workers overseas apparently do not affect to their domestic employees’ configuration due to insignificance outflow rate. China, India and Indonesia, for example, have only about 3-5% of their skilled citizen working overseas(Aráuz& Torres, n.d). In fact,migration of skilled and semi-skilled workers seems to be lucrative. Most of Asian governments face high unemployment rate and thus struggle to provide job opportunities for their skilled and educated jobseekers.For instances, Indonesia has more than 6.32% unemployment of the total population300 million. Of the unemployed, 6.34% are educated in undergraduate and postgraduate degree (BPS, 2012). While Indonesia struggles to provide better job opportunity, working overseas is a promising option. In term of number, although only few jobseekers will able to fulfill the requirements of the overseas opportunities, it will does decrease the domestic unemployment rates.
The long term impacts of brain drain seem to be tightly related to democracy. Since democracy application in African differs to those of Asian, the long-term results of brain drain are also apparently to differ. The flow of “brain gain”, the inverse of brain drain, to Africa is unseen. Vast majority of African-origin skilled workers seem reluctant to return to their home countries for many reasons. The most possible reason is that the domestic situation is relatively unchanged. Political interests likely still dominate the countries and neglect democracy principles. As a result, people may be threatened and feel unsafe. To take several examples, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Sudan and Libya are list countries that may fail to implement democracy because of which riots are prevalent.
Nevertheless, unlike the African experiences, Asia has conversely distinct fashion and relatively succeeds to deploy democracy. Positive impacts of brain gain goes along with this democracy accomplishment and therefore benefits Asian countries in many aspects, in particular, accelerating new skilled-workers growth and fostering economic growth. A case in point is India. After Indonesia, India is the second largest country that successfully implements democracy principle. Initially, in 1990’s, India was suffered from scarcity of software engineers, as they migrated to the US and working for Microsoft in Silicon Valley. Surprisingly, since then, the number of new software engineers in India rose dramatically (Sanexian, 2006). Whether this rise is due to the brain drain or the fact that India is now more affluent is uncertain. However, according to Sanexian (2006), the 1990’s of software engineer’s migration has significantly contributed to the growth of the new skilled workers in India. The main reason was that many young Indian has been inspired to work overseas as it has many benefits such as attaining higher salary, better career, and higher social status. Consequently, many students became more enthusiastic to equip and elevate themselves with skills and education. Although their main goal was to work abroad, the eligibilities, for example having high TOEFL score, were sometime difficult to fulfill. Furthermore, along with the increase of domestic job opportunities, in addition to reluctance to leave their extended family, many of them revised their goal to work abroad. Subsequently, the number of new-high-skilled and educated workers soared in India.
Between African and Asian countries, the long-term impacts of brain drain to foster economic growth are even more contradictive. On one hand, the sending countries in Africa seem to have none or lesseconomic benefits, for instance less tax remittance. Assuming that the motivation for becoming brain was merely due to the push factors, the skilled workers tended to migrate with their entire family members. As a result, none remittance will be transferred for their family.Furthermore, since they reluctance to return, for example due to the above reason, they will not be able to involve in fostering economic developments. On the other hand, Asian sending countries acquire much economic benefits in term of remittance. In this specific case, Philippines, which are well known as the biggest nurse provider in the world, may be the best examples. As many as 10% million Filipinos; most of them are nurses, scattered in Europe and the US. In 2005, according to World Bank’s Global Economic Prospects,as much as $US 11.6 billion is sent per year through government channel. This amount is as much as 12% of the Philippines Gross Development Products (GDP) (World Bank, 2008). Using these remittances, according to a survey, make Filipinos tend to become more affluent (Aráuz& Torres, n.d).
Despite the fact that brain drain has not yet brought significant improvement in most of African countries, in the long term it may be beneficial. To attain this aim, the countries’ leaders must have an outstanding commitment to implement democracy principals as the main pillar and foster development in many aspects. Along with this process, brain drain should not be restricted, in fact, it should be encouraged. Seeing brain drain as a process by which educated and skilled people are trained and “matured” will be much more beneficial rather than restricting or even worse banning it.
In conclusion, many countries in Africa and Asia are prevalent for brain drain. The impacts of brain drain were experienced differently across those of African and Asia, in term of stimulating the rise of new skilled-workers and fostering economic development in the home countries, either in the short-term or the long-term. In the short-term, Africa were suffered from the brain drain, in the form of scarcity of skilled workers. For many Asian countries, brain drain was a kind of blessing. As the outflow rate was low, brain drain barely has any effects towards domestic employment configuration. In fact, it was worthy as it help government to alleviate the unemployment rate. The long term effects of brain drain seemed to have positive correlation towards democracy. The more successful the country implements democracy, the more benefits they got from the brain drain. In this case, in general, as Asian country implement democracy much better than those of Africa, the better impacts that they able to attain from the brain drain, in particular, in term of accelerating the growth of skilled human resources and fostering economic growth. Although brain drain has not been positively influenced many countries in Africa, it should not be restricted. Rather, it should be encourage as it will be beneficial for the future leaders.
References:
Aráuz, M.A., Torres, U.W. (n.d). Brain Drain across the Globe: Country Case Studies. http://www.mundus.amu.edu.pl/
BadanPusatStatistik (BPS).(2012). BeritaResmiStatistik.Retrieved in 22 September 2012.http://www.bps.go.id/?news=928
Docquier, F., and Marfouk A. (2005). International Migration by Educational Attainment.Release 1.1, March.
Encyclopedia Britannica. (2012). Retrieved in 24 September 2012.
Özden, C. (2005). Brain Drain In Latin America, Report from Expert Group Meeting On International Migration And Development In Latin America And The Caribbean; Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, UN.
Sanexian, A. (2005). From Brain Drain to Brain Circulation: Transnational Communities and Regional Upgrading in India and China.Studies in Comparative International Development, Vol. 40, No. 2, pp. 35-61.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report. (2001).Making New Technologies Work for Human Development. Oxford Univ. Press, New York.http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/307/5714/1415?ijkey=iuKl6W4vRIE3.&keytype=ref&siteid=sci#ref*#ref*
World Bank (2008).World Development Indicators 2008.Washington, DC: TheWorld Bank.
Yeboah, S. (n.d).A Diagnosis of the Medical Brain DrainProblem in Developing Nations: A Case Study of Ghana. Oystein Consult.
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