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Brain Drain good for developing countries??? Really??

Joined
11/4/10
Messages
55
Points
18
No matter what the economist says.. this article fails to convince me..

Perhaps they should consider the loss in revenue, infrastructural development, entrepreneurial ventures, creative minds and local role models that are not covered by the remittances. Then the equation might reflect reality.

http://www.economist.com/node/18741763
 
and what exactly is a brilliant artist supposed to do without the proper paint or canvas? Brain drain is because the native country doesn't provide the proper atmosphere. Maybe it is corruption, , maybe an economic system that does not provide the right incentives, who knows. It benefits the native country because people come to more developed nations, find an outlet for their creativity and then bring those benefits back home.
 
If we don't take the personal factors into account why someone might return to the homeland(developing country), from pure professional point of view is that after gaining experience abroad (as the article says), they find it more profitable to find work in domestic country since they are awarded much more sometimes when being in a foreign country and have competitors of similar level. As Alexei says about science, for example Physicists may go abroad when a domestic country simply doesn't have laboratories to pursue their theoretical knowledge. After gaining experience abroad they find themselves more privileged in homeland. Not to say anything about the reasons of coming back due to upward trend being experienced in domestic economy.
 
This article is as misguided as Reaganomics.

followed by this:

I don't know any scientist in Russia that still makes a living as a scientist. Same goes for all academics really. They sell medical equipment, they sell water purification equipment, they sell private tutoring, grades, test questions, anything really. When your salary is garbage you will do anything you can to get by. 10%, 20%, 50% more on top of garbage is still garbage. The problem is you really need another order of magnitude of salary to live life at a respectable level.

made me lol.
 
Yep. I agree with Alexei. I think the very reasons that we expect these immigrants to go back to their home countries are the reasons they left their home countries. US/Europe even being in one of its worst recessions offers much better quality of life than any developing country (BRIC/ African countries). The magnitude of corruption is much lesser than most Asian and African countries. Many of these people who left their home countries might have left because there is so much corruption that it is impossible to do anything.

Again talking about new technologies, I think very very few new technologies are in fact adopted in these countries, as the type of work done in these countries is unclean ( basic manufacturing as opposed high end manufacturing and so on), so the knowledge gained in these developed countries is not so much applicable in developing countries.

Finally, for some people it might not even be money/opportunities/corruption, it might simply be that they came to enjoy a life in a much safer, cleaner community. Regardless of what we might say, it is a well known fact that cities in developed countries offer a much cleaner and safer environment than those in developing countries. In most developing countries there is no such thing as social security, medi-claim etc etc (and this is US I'm talking about). The facilities offered by European countries are even better - Pensions, money for children, free education etc etc.
 
But the question still remains... is the money spent by developing countries on educating its population worth the investment, if educated youth is gonna leave anytime they get a chance?? migrating n doing whats best for yourseld is a human right i think.. should the govt be making harsher rules for those willing to migrate like singapore does for those who got any kind of govt aid in attaining their educatiin.. something like a lockout period??
 
@ Goalseeker

The Singapore govt., I believe enforces those rules for only those people who get subsidized education, not on those who pay full tuition. At-least that is what I saw on the website of Singaporean Universities.
 
Finally the government can't run away from its duty of educating the population of its country. After all, its the taxpayers money and the govt's money, so this money should be spent in a way that it benefits the general population.

This is like : People misuse facilities for poor people (selling subsidized food they get in the market for market prices), deface public property (at-least in South-Asia), so should the govt stop spending on these vital things?

If anything, this should be a reason why govt. should spend even more on infrastructure and other things, so that people don't need to leave their countries.

Just Imagine if America had done the same (reduce spending on education etc etc) during 1800's , when standard of living was definitely better in UK or Europe, would US have been what it became in 20th century and now?
 
Instead of complaining about people doing what people have always done throughout time, seek a better life, those who feel that "brain drain" is negative should focus on finding ways to provide an incentive to stay in their native land. Sorry, but if I am living in a developing country and I am intelligent, I am going to try and go to a place that will reward me and my family.

Brain drain is good because it utilizes people who would otherwise go to waste. Arguing against brain drain is like saying every download = a lost sale. Someone leaving and becoming successful doesn't mean that you have lost someone. Had they stayed home they might never of been successful at all.
 
A lot depends upon what you think a country is for...
Do people own the country, or does the country own them ?

One has to separate what is in the interests of a government and what is good for the people they govern.
 
The Catch 22 is that brain drain leads to more brain drain. It is difficult to stop it when the people who have the mental capacity and ideas and ability to realize them are all going abroad.
 
The Catch 22 is that brain drain leads to more brain drain. It is difficult to stop it when the people who have the mental capacity and ideas and ability to realize them are all going abroad.

But often there's nothing for them to do in their own country -- unemployed, underemployed, or paid so little they have trouble making ends meet. In this sense it's difficult to decide whether the efflux of skilled people is a cause or an effect of a disintegrating society. The society from which they make their escape may be so backward, so ossified, so corrupt, that they could not make a contribution even if they wanted to.

Take a highly intelligent third-worlder who somehow makes it to the West, and studies and becomes a quantum field theorist. What's he going to do in his third-world country? The pay for academics will hardly be enough to survive on; a research community will be absent; funds for travel to seminars and congresses absent; money for research journals not there. He will stagnate, wither, and die (in a manner of speaking).

And so it's not enough to criticise those who seek to leave; one must also criticise the inertia, ossification, and corruption of the societies they seek to leave from.
 
The Catch 22 is that brain drain leads to more brain drain.

I don't think that the perspective is that bleak, there exist number of factors not mentioned in the discussion above that are counter-balancing, to the some extent, the fact that workforce mobility is these days more easier than ever. For example, lots of people are just staying in their home country and working either remotely for, or in local branches of, companies from developed countries. Oftentimes, these job opportunities come through local people that emigrated to developed countries at some earlier point - so, yes, so-called "brain-drain" could indeed have some positive effects even on developing countries.
 
The people who work for foreign (western) MNC's basically do the equivalent of blue collar work in manufacturing industries in their home countries (Even if you consider Service sector). Most of the jobs outsourced to these third world countries are back office jobs (jobs that require much much less intellectual work than the actual work done in the West). So, in a way, the workers in third world countries are still underemployed. The work that these people do can be done by hi-tech machines.

For instance, Most of the call centers based in third world English speaking countries are of this type. Such work could have been obtained with a help of a well designed IVR. Similarly, Robots can be used to take care of most of monotonous manufacturing part, but still (because of even lesser value of human labor) these jobs are outsourced to, say China, Vietnam etc.

Many of the people, who get an opportunity to go to the West and are tired of this monotonous work and garbage pay, take the first ticket to Developed world and never return. Here, the real intellectual potential is properly utilized.

The huge disparity of the number of patents, number of Nobel prize winners, number of fields medal winners, and so on are testimony to this fact.

The people in these third world countries are not responsible for this ( if it were they wouldn't have achieved so much after emigrating to the Developed world). It is the whole environment in these countries that is responsible. A person who barely earns enough to feed himself cannot be expected to risk anything more for just another invention ( which might never even take off, considering such low pay-offs in such endeavors).
 
The people who work for foreign (western) MNC's basically do the equivalent of blue collar work in manufacturing industries in their home countries (Even if you consider Service sector).

Obviously, I was not talking about this type of jobs, as these are not topic of this discussion - I was talking about jobs related to products design/development, or even to research (to some extent).
 
BBW raises an interesting point here:

And so it's not enough to criticise those who seek to leave; one must also criticise the inertia, ossification, and corruption of the societies they seek to leave from.

This leaves us with one of the great dilemma's faced by the West. Do you intervene (which in many cases would involve war as these nations are governed by dictators) or do you stand back and hope the people can solve it themselves - or maybe it is a shade of the two?
I guess the Arab Spring will provide a good counter argument to the 2000's approach in Iraq.

I would argue in Europe the Left is generally opposed to any intervention that involves military conflict - and whilst I understand that position, that effectively leaves the status quo in 99% of cases where dictatorships hold the power. This of course in turn leads the best and brightest from these nations to leave for the West and a better life.

Elements of the Right (I guess your Neocons/NuLabour types) would argue intervention is necessary. Of course we have seen the outcome of that is chaotic, unpredictable, expensive and not always a success - let alone the cost to human life.

Countries like India, which may have corruption problems at least have a good chance of fixing these problems, as they don't have dictatorships running the country, they have good education systems and a working civil service.

Places such as Somalia , it's anyone's guess how they will turn the country around....
 
No Tsotne. Just no. No matter what "knowledge" you "gain abroad", if there is no laboratory and the workers are paid peanuts, you just aren't going to go back. That's just not how life in the real world works. In the real world, someone has to build that laboratory for you to work in it. Someone has to secure funding for experimentation. If 20% of your country's GDP consists of immigrants sending scraps back to their relatives, who are you kidding? What laboratory? With what money?

You are raising many interesting points. But the catch is exactly that the workers are not paid peanuts after gaining experience in highly developed country and returning to developing homeland. It doesn't even deserves argument that they are considered more knowledgeable and experienced than the domestically trained workers and are paid more. Only Russia is not the housekeeper of "deflated" scientists. And what you said here:

if there is no laboratory and the workers are paid peanuts, you just aren't going to go back

is in contrast to my argument that after returning home, you are paid much more sometimes as you would be had you not returned home. I know quite many examples. And the reason could be the following:

1) You are competing with the academics (generally workers) on the same level and opportunities while being abroad.
2) Beyond the fierce competition, the number of competitors is large, thus shrinking your chances of getting ahead.

Due to the above reasons and some more, the demand for highly qualified workers is well balanced with supply in USA for example. But in your homeland, you are precious compared with domestic "competitors" so your value increases because of dis-balance of supply-demand of highly qualified workers. As for high qualification assessment, we both agree that after gaining experience/education in west you are considered more valuable right?!

As for Russia, it has never been a surprise that Russia (and not only) has been full of criminal gangs taking EVERYONE's money who makes a bit more than living. Of course you might fear returning home and that could be a reason of staying abroad. I completely agree. But those reasons can be somewhat balanced by the above 2 I provided. So what I meant was to say some reasons why a worker(scientist in above case) may return home.
 
This leaves us with one of the great dilemma's faced by the West. Do you intervene (which in many cases would involve war as these nations are governed by dictators) or do you stand back and hope the people can solve it themselves - or maybe it is a shade of the two?

So-called humanitarian interventions are always undertaken with ulterior motives. In the past it was called "white man's burden" and "bringing religion to the heathen." Now it's called bringing "freedom" and "democracy." If you can, get hold of a copy of Wallerstein's slim book, "European Universalism." For example in Afghanistan, Karzai has called for NATO to stop bombing (which is killing civilians); a NATO spokesman afterwards announced that the bombing would continue. So here you have a case of a stooge ruler put in place by the US -- ostensibly to show that "democracy" was being restored -- and they don't even bother listening to him. The interventions are to plant stooge rulers and to make sure Western economic interests are served.

The problem of failed and failing states is partly a problem of a global structure where the West still dominates most of the world -- economically and militarily. The "Arab Spring" -- which the USD is trying to subvert -- is not only about booting out local rulers, but trying to change the the status quo where corrupt rulers do the bidding of the West (as has been the case in Egypt and Tunisia and remains the case elsewhere). This Western domination is changing slowly, with the advent of BRIC. In this global structure, the educational opportunities, the career possibilities, and the high wages are still in the West.

To go back after being trained in the West is still having to reconcile oneself to low wages. The best one can do is find employment with a multinational -- but the multinational will of course not pay by Western standards. The local companies pay even less. The prospects aren't that great -- local capital tends to be what we call "comprador capital" -- commission agents and junior partners to Western firms. And the career ladder in the multinationals is almost always confined to that country.

I would argue in Europe the Left is generally opposed to any intervention that involves military conflict - and whilst I understand that position, that effectively leaves the status quo in 99% of cases where dictatorships hold the power. This of course in turn leads the best and brightest from these nations to leave for the West and a better life.

Those dictators don't hold power in an international vacuum. They are propped up militarily by Western powers -- USA, and to a lesser extent Britain and France. The interventions are there to consolidate the hold of local stooges and maintain the status quo. When supporting them becomes untenable, then the West suddenly discovers how bad they really were, sheds some crocodile tears, and attempts to subvert popular feeling by sneaking in other stooges.

In brief: change the global system of imperial control and migratory patterns will start to change.

Elements of the Right (I guess your Neocons/NuLabour types) would argue intervention is necessary. Of course we have seen the outcome of that is chaotic, unpredictable, expensive and not always a success - let alone the cost to human life.

Au contraire, mon ami: they're only a failure in terms of the avowed and ostensible motives ("nation building," "democratising," blah, blah, blah). In reality they're a necessary instrument of maintaining imperial control. Why does the US not leave Afghanistan when even the Pentagon is saying there are not more than 100 Al-Qaeda members in the country? Why can Obama never explain what the "mission" is there?

Countries like India, which may have corruption problems at least have a good chance of fixing these problems, as they don't have dictatorships running the country, they have good education systems and a working civil service.

Countries like Iraq had sterling educational and health care systems (I lived there for a couple of years). And now it's buried in rubble.
 
@ cgorac

Agreed. I was referring to the jobs (generally) done in these third world countries. Jobs such as R&D, product design, etc are rare to come by in such countries, because there is just not enough concentration of people who are willing to do research in such countries as compared to the West. Of course I am assuming that most these workers emigrated to the West. This is supported by the fact that quality of research in the West is way way better than that in these countries.

Finally, talking about Individuals who are paid western salaries in these third world countries, I would say most of such jobs go to Whites (Yes, even natives of these third world countries unknowingly promote racism in this way), while those people who return (the ones to emigrated) are paid peanuts. It is almost impossible for a native of such country to convince his employer to pay him a Western salary.

@ NewHavenCT

I think you are over generalizing dictatorships vs Democracy. Countries such as Pakistan, which is a democracy, are considered failed states.

You talk about India, but see how much progress China has made in every field in last 30 years. China being a communist state invests more in infrastructure, education, etc than probably any country on the planet. If you compare any third world country to China, most of them, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, will look failed states.

You are also making a mistake by saying that most of these third world countries are dictatorships. The more important thing is the population in these third world countries. By using population as a standard, on the basis of per capita income, more than 50% of the third world population lives in democratic countries. India+ Pakistan+ Bangladesh alone ~= 1.8 Billion. Add to this number millions in South-East Asia and Africa.
 
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