Foreword
The following blog explores the issue of “brain drain”.
As you may assume I could post a picture of human brain with legs, hands or any
other attributes, which do not belong to above-mentioned body organ. Visualization
of internal organs in any sphere rather than medicine or biology contradicts to
my perception of beauty. Therefore, I responsibly declare that I WILL NOT USE such
images in order to save the aesthetics of this post.
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| Click for original source |
The term of “brain drain” is usually described as a “loss
of scientific manpower from a particular profession, scientific field, or
geographic region” (Brain drain, 2005). For example, this term is inextricably linked
to the names of Nobel Prize laureates, such as creator of the theory of
relativity Albert Einstein, the architect of the first nuclear reactor Enrico
Fermi and father of quantum mechanics Max Born. Being under the pressure of the
Nazi party, all of them left Germany and contributed to
development of science in other countries. Usually, discussing such cases, it
is presupposed by the zero-sum theory (Zero-Sum game, 2000) that a receiving
country gains from the outflow of intellectual manpower, in other words, experiences
a “brain gain” while an opposite site loses its skilled human resources.
Nevertheless, there is another opinion. Rizvi (2005) reports
on “brain exchange”, when diasporic communities send money they earned abroad
to the country of origin, which consequently increases national income by so-called
“GDP multiplier effect” (Taylor, 1999, as cited in Rizvi 2005). Accordingly, the
amount of diasporic remittance was on the astonishing level of $65 billion in
2001.
Another case emerges from a country’s inability to
provide workforce with corresponding workplace. Gosh and Gosh (1982) describe outflow
of skilled human resources by zero marginal productivity (as cited in Rizvi 2005).
For instance, there may be no opportunities and facilities for space ships engineer
or nanotechnology specialist somewhere in Central Africa.
On another hand, when the developing country is always
under the risk of losing its intellectual capital, there are some wise
initiatives aiming to turn the trend into a positive direction. As an
illustration, Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program targets to attract
10 000 diaspora scholars in a wide area of disciplines to establish scientific collaboration
and develop curriculum in order to teach African students (MacGregor,
2015) .This
approach indicates that developing countries understand their failure to stop
outflow or return people and change a focus on collaboration instead.
In the end, we are able to say that the loss of
scientific labor is a complex process. It may include positive brain export or
even let to obtaining benefits by both countries. It appears that our usually
negative perception occurs due to the lack of understanding of the intricacies
of the issue. Finally, further research and detailed approach to each case of intellect’
outflow can provide us with a real picture of the global trend.
References:
Brain drain. (2005). In
Science in the early Twentieth century: An encyclopedia. Santa Barbara,
CA: ABC-CLIO. Retrieved from
http://ezproxy.library.nu.edu.kz:2058/content/entry/abcscieth/brain_drain/0
Ghosh, B., & Ghosh, N. (1982). Economics
of brain migration. New Delhi: Deep and Deep.
MacGregor, K. (2015, March 13). Plan
to engage 10,000 diaspora scholars in African HE. Retrieved from University
World News:
http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20150313093523872
Rizvi, F. (2005). Rethinking “Brain
Drain” in the era of globalisation. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 25(2),
175–192.
Taylor, E. J. (1999). The new
economics of labour migration and the role of remittances in the migration
process. International Migration, 37(1), 63–88.
Zero-Sum game. (2000). In The
Blackwell dictionary of sociology. Oxford, United Kingdom: Blackwell
Publishers. Retrieved from
http://literati.credoreference.com/content/entry/bksoc/zero_sum_game/0
Thank you, Stas for this interesting blog! First, I would like to support you, that I also do not like a picture of "human brain with legs")). Secondly, now we know that the issue of brain drain is very complex and even can be beneficial to both countries. Nevertheless, the main point I think, the fact that well-knowledgeable and talented people work, invent something and bring prosperity to a country. Also, as we live in a high technological era with the help of Internet the person who leaves the country can easily communicate with the home country, share ideas, support the working environment with home country. In turns, this lead to the networking which is now a good tendency. Moreover, while surfing the Internet I read one article where was written that people going abroad to gain a degree and some experience after several years prefer to return to their home countries. Thus, we see the changing nature of brain drain.
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