MAYDAY, MAYDAY, WE HAVE BRAIN DRAIN!

Brain drain is also known as “the human capital flight”. It can be simply defined as the mass emigration of technically skilled people from one country to another. Brain-drain can have many reasons, like political instability, lack of opportunities or income inequalities.

This phenomenon of brain drain has a conversed effect for a country in which people are getting migrated and brain-drain of a nation becomes brain-gain for that particular country. Usually all developing countries are suffering from brain drain and developed countries are having brain gain from this phenomenon.

In Europe, it was the migration of workers from the southeastern Europe and Eastern Europe to the Western Europe. Other stage of brain-drain was the migration from Western Europe to the USA. But this cycle of migration is getting slower these days. There are very significant population flows from Turkey to Germany (2.000.000 Turks living in Germany) and from Romania to Italy and Spain (800.000+800.000 people). Also 3 million of Moroccan are living in Europe, and 3 million Polish are living outside of their country.

Africa has suffered maximum because of brain-drain. Ethiopia lost its 75 % of skilled workers in the years 1980-1991. This mass migration of skilled workers is showing extremely detrimental effects on the development of nation. In the similar manner Kenya and Nigeria are also great sufferers of brain-drain.

Countries of Middle East like Iraq or Iran are also great sufferers of the phenomena of brain-drain. Lack of some basic facilities and services are the reasons for the mass migration from these areas. Dictatorship, terrorism, orthodox attitude are basic hurdles of development of this region. 

In Asia, China, Pakistan, and India are also facing this kind of problems. Unemployment, population explosion, low wages and corrupt political systems are main reasons for migration of skilled workers from Asia. In countries like India, Pakistan or Bangladesh, graduates, post graduates, experienced and skilled professionals are not getting enough opportunities to develop and succeed. So these professionals leave their native country in search of better future. This brain-drain is a great loss to these developing countries.

Talented workers from South and Central America had traditionally emigrated to Europe and mainly to USA. It’s remarkable that almost 12 million of Mexican people are living in USA.

On the other hand, brain-gain is just an opposite situation to brain-drain. Countries in which skilled workers are migrating are said to brain-gaining countries. Examples include USA, Canada, Australia and UK. These countries are having brain-gain because these nations are wealth and have enough work opportunities. Moreover, they provide better facilities and lifestyles.

There is a simple and visual site to obtain useful information about migration flows across the world.

http://peoplemov.in