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The term Brain drain is a slang term that is synonymous with the term '' human capital flight''. It describes the movement of very valuable individuals from one location to another. Brain drain among professionals is a common phenomenon especially in underdeveloped countries of the world.
Definition of brain drain (human capital flight)
Brain drain simply refers to the emigration or immigration of individuals who have received advanced training in their country.
The net benefits of brain drain for the receiving country are referred to as "brain gain" whereas the net loss for the country of origin is referred to as "brain drain''.
Types of brain drain (human capital flight)
There are three main types of brain drain this includes the following
- Organizational brain drain
- Geographical brain drain
- Industrial brain drain
Organizational brain drain
This simply involves the movement of the highly skilled, experienced, talented and creative staff of an organization to another organization or company.
This kind of movement usually occurs when employees feel that the organization is regressive, stagnant or unstable and as a result unable to sustain their personal development and professional ambitions.
Geographical brain drain
This is the common type of brain drain among professionals. It has two types.
Intra country and inter-country
Intra country brain drain among professionals is simply the relocation of highly trained individuals and college graduates from their area of residence to another area within the same country.
This could be a result of security issues or better work opportunities in the receiving part of the country.
Intercountry brain drain among professionals, as the name implies it entails the movement of highly trained and skilled professionals from one country to another, usually in search of greener pastures. A typical example is the recent brain drain of Nigerian doctors and nurses to other developed nations.
Industrial brain drain
This is similar to geographic brain drain. This type of human capital flight involves the flight of highly skilled staff from one section of the industry to another.
Causes of brain drain among professionals
The most common causes of human capital flight are;
1. Political instability
2. Security issues
3. Job opportunities and enumeration
4. Quality of life and standard of living.
Political instability
This is a potential cause of geographical brain drain because, during political turmoil, the wealthy, highly skilled and highly educated individuals of the affected society tend to migrate to other countries or another region of the same country.
Security issues
This as a cause of human capital flight is similar to political instability, because individuals relocate to other countries or part of the same country because of perceived risk to their life and property.
Job opportunities and remuneration
This is a very common cause of brain drain among professionals in underdeveloped countries, especially in Africa.
This is simply because these professionals from poorly developed countries are migrating in search of better job opportunities, job satisfaction and remuneration.
Quality of life and standard of living
This is another notable reason why some countries of the world experience human capital flight because wealthy individuals, who are talented and skilled would likely prefer to reside in countries where their standard of living and quality of life is commensurate with their status.
This category of individuals will gravitate towards countries or parts of a country with good amenities, good health facilities and good schools for their kids.
Effects of brain drain (human capital flight)
The effect of brain drain among professionals can be divided into two broad categories: expertise and economic effect.
Expertise
Expertise will be lost for the country of origin of the migrating professionals, while the receiving country will gain the imported expertise(brain gain). However, the effect of loss or gain of expertise will depend on the net number of such expertise in the sending and receiving country.
Emigration of highly skilled and educated individuals in countries or areas where there is an inadequate number of these professionals will result in loss of expertise, which may create more problems for the area or country affected. Whereas emigration from an area or country with a surplus of graduates will lead to better opportunities for the ones left.
In countries or areas that have an excess of graduates, immigration of foreign-trained professionals can increase the underemployment level of the indigenous graduates. However, if the graduates in the receiving country are not adequate immigration of foreign-trained professionals will boost the service delivery in the area.
Economic effects of brain drain
They are significant economic benefits of human capital flight for the migrants themselves and the receiving country (brain gain). This is because the migrants get better job opportunities and remuneration with improved standard of living and quality of life while the receiving country benefits from the services provided.
The impact on the country of origin of the migrating professionals can be positive, negative or mixed. It may be positive from the point of view that the emigrants in most cases still have dependants in their native country as such will still be remitting money which may increase the spending power of the relatives with indirect positive economic effects.
The country of origin can also potentially benefit economically if the migrants after improving their level of skill, expertise and knowledge, later return to their home country to boost their economy.
The economic effects of brain drain can also be negative on the country of origin because when valuable members of a country or area migrate, they inadvertently reduce the spending power of the area. They also export their expertise out further reducing the ability of the area to generate revenue with negative economic effects.
Due to the negative effects of brain drain especially among health professionals (doctors and nurses), some restrictions were placed on active recruitment from those countries, however, the health professionals are at liberty to migrate in search of greener pastures.
There is currently no evidence that such restrictions on high-skill emigration reduce shortages of highly skilled professionals in the countries of origin. Also, there is no palpable practice-based evidence that migration restrictions have contributed to development anywhere in the world.
Some real-world examples of brain drain among professionals
1. Puerto Rican debt crisis. since 2019 resulted in a massive exodus of skilled medical professionals (doctors and nurses) from the island in search of more lucrative opportunities on the mainland.
2. Countries in Africa have lost a very significant number of their educated and skilled populations as a result of emigration to more developed countries, which has negatively impacted the ability of such nations to pull out of poverty and underdevelopment. Nigeria, Kenya, and Ethiopia are believed to be the most affected
⦿ Ghana currently has about 3,600 doctors. One doctor for every 6,700 inhabitants. While a significant number of their young doctors and nurses are abroad in search of higher salaries and better working conditions.
⦿ Nigeria, as of January last year BBC reported that About 4000 Nigerian doctors are practising in the USA, while about 5000 is currently registered in the UK.
The total number of registered doctors in Nigeria is about 74,543 in a country of about 200 million people. This means that the doctor-patient ratio in the country is 1 doctor:3,500 inhabitants. This clearly falls below the World Health Organisation’s recommendation of 1:600.
The number of health professionals in Nigeria will have significantly further declined considering the recent exodus of young and old medical doctors to Saudi Arabia. This is mainly a result of very poor working conditions and remuneration in Nigeria.
⦿ South Africa like many other African nations has been encountering human capital flight in the past two decades, since the end of the apartheid period. The brain drain in South Africa seems to be more pronounced among the White South African communities heightened by Black Economic Empowerment policies.
From 2008 to 2013 South Africa experienced a reverse brain drain with about 359,000 highly skilled South Africans returning to South Africa from foreign countries. A significant number of the returned South Africans were professionals such as doctors, engineers and lawyers
Conclusion
Brain drain is a phenomenon that affects mostly the underdeveloped countries of the world.
In the majority of the cases especially in Africa, the reason for human capital flight is poor job satisfaction, remuneration and very poor working conditions.
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