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Migration of Highly Skilled Workers at the Turn of the 21st Century:

Literature Review

Krzysztof Podemski

Migration is a response to differences in areas that encourage individuals to move, usually to

take advantage of higher incomes and jobs or more security and improved human rights.

Reducing the root causes of such migration is a primary objective of U.N. agencies and

national government development programs as well as private efforts aimed at promoting

development.

Philip Martin, Manolo Abella, Christiane Kuptsch, Managing Labor Migration in the

Twenty-First Century, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2006, p. 150

Travel and migration as forms of mobility

Mobility is often seen as one of the essential features of our century. The British

sociologist John Urry (2000) has even proclaimed a new sociology, understood as mobility

research. In his “Sociology beyond the Societies. Mobilities for the twenty-first century”,

Urry proposes replacing traditional sociology, the study of society, with a new sociology, the

study of mobility. He describes our globalized world in terms of “scapes and flows”. “People,

money, capital, information, ideas and images are seen to ‘flow’ along various ‘scapes’ which

are organized through complex interlocking networks located both within and across different

societies” (Urry, 2000:12). Here it’s worth recalling the classic line from Adam Smith’s

“Wealth of Nations”: “Man is of all sorts of luggage the most difficult to be transported”.

Travel and migrations are as old as humanity itself. But mass mobility is really quite a

new phenomenon. For centuries it was limited to traditional means of transport. Until the 19th

century, horses, camels, and sails were the only “vehicles”. Steamships and railway were

crucial inventions in that regard. But only the development of airlines in the second half of the

20th century made longer-distance mobility more widely available and more comfortable. The

flow of people between countries during the last sixty years has increased inconceivably. The

number of international journeys (counting only so-called tourist journeys—i.e. the “arrival

of an overnight visitor”) has increased from 25 million in 1950 to 160 million in 1970, from

425 million in 1990 to 924 million in 2008. The largest share of the 2008 “overnight visitor

arrivals” were in Europe (53%), followed by Asia (19%), and North America (11%).

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Countries on other continents are less popular travel destinations. The share of Middle Eastern

countries is 6%, of African countries 5%, of Central and South American countries 5%, and

of Australia and Oceania only 1%. The top travel destination countries in 2008 were France

(79 million), Spain (58 million), the USA (57 million), China (53 million), Italy (43 million),

the UK (36 million), Ukraine, Turkey, and Germany (25 million each), and Mexico (23

million) (UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, vol.7, no, Jan 2009).

Even if migrants (statistically defined as people living at least 12 months abroad) are

only a small part of all international travellers, international migration has become a more

significant phenomenon than ever before. One of most popular introductory books on the

problems of migrations is entitled The Age of Migration (Castles, Miller, 2003), while another

is Worlds in Motion. Understanding International Migration at the End of the Millennium

(Massey, Arango, Hugo, Kouaouci, Pelegrino, Taylor, 2005). The number of migrants has not

increased as rapidly as the number of journeys, but has nonetheless doubled between 1965

and 2000 (IOM, 2000b). In 1990, there were 120 million migrants; in 2000, 175 million. And

in 2005, 190 million, or 3% of the total world population, were living at least a year in

countries other than their country of birth (http://econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/

EXTDEC/ EXTDECPROSPECTS/0 ). It has been commented that, “if the world’s 175

million migrants were gathered as one ‘nation’, it would be the sixth-most populous after

China, India, The United States, Indonesia and Brazil, and ahead of Russia and Pakistan”

(Martin, Abella, Kuptsch, 2006:4).1

Both travel and migration are spatial mobilities, which results in leaving “home” and

in a change of the current environment, minimally social (e.g. change of neighbours) or

geographic (e.g. a change in the view from the window), but frequently also cultural (above

all the language dominant in environment, the religion, alphabet used, and customs) and

natural (e.g. climate, fauna, and flora). As a consequence of this relocation we find ourselves

in another (i.e., the same and yet not the same) “world”, as for example when we travel to

New York or Paris from London. But travel can also bring us to a different (i.e., not the same)

“world” if we move from, say, a Nepalese village to London. Clearly, the distinction between

otherness and difference is a matter of individual judgement, definition, previous experience,

sensitivity, and cultural competencies. A traveller by definition leaves his home temporarily,

1 Author’s note: Some data and analyses may not correspond to each other. The latest published raw statistical data on migration accessible during the preparation of this paper refer to 2005. The books reviewed concern mainly earlier, 2000, data.

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while a migrant, even if intending to return, very often finds a new home overseas (Podemski,

2004, 2005)

The largest immigrant2 populations live in the USA (38 million), Russia (12 million),

Germany (109 million), Ukraine and France (7 million each), Saudi Arabia, Canada and India

(6 million each), and the UK and Spain (5 million each). The countries with the largest share

(more than a third) of immigrants in the population were Qatar and Andorra (78%), the

United Arab Emirates (71%), Kuwait (62%), the Isle of Man (48%), the Channel Islands

(46%), the West Bank & Gaza (45%), Singapore (43%), Bahrain (41%), Israel (40%), Jordan

(39%), Luxembourg (37%), the Cayman Islands (36%), Lichtenstein and San Marino (43%

each). In 2005, the countries with the most emigrants (i.e. with the largest number of people

living abroad) were Mexico and Russia (11.5 million), India (10.0 million), China (7 million),

Ukraine (6 million), Bangladesh (5 million), Turkey, the UK, Germany and Kazakhstan (4

million each) (http://econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/ EXTDEC/

EXTDECPROSPECTS/0 ).

The countries with the highest percentage of people (more than a quarter of the

population) living abroad were Jamaica (39%), Bosnia & Herzegovina (38%), Trinidad &

Tobago and Armenia (27% each), the West Bank & Gaza (26%), and Kazakhstan (25%).

The destinations of migrant and tourist differ. Most tourists travel from the North to

the South, while migrants travel from the South to the North, or—in a relatively new

phenomenon—from the South to the South. Migration destinations are no longer limited to

the traditional choices of the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Argentina, but now

also include European countries. In 2005, the busiest “migration corridors” (with more than

1 million emigrants) were: Mexico –> USA (10.3 million), Russia –> Ukraine (4.3 million),

Ukraine –> Russia (3.6 million), Bangladesh –> India (3.5 million), Turkey –> Germany (2.7

million), Kazakhstan –> Russia (2.6 million), India –> United Arab Emirates (2.2 million),

Russia –> Kazakhstan (1.8 million), Philippines –> USA (1.6 million), Afghanistan –> Iran

(1.6 million), Germany –> USA (1.4 million), Algeria->France (1.4 million), India –>Saudi

Arabia (1.3 million), Egypt –> Saudi Arabia (1.2 million), Pakistan –> India (1.2 million),

2 Migration statistics use two different types of definition of a migrant: “living not less than 12 months in a country other than that of their usual residence” or “living not less than 12 months in a country other than that of birth”. The first refers to “home” (the usual residence), but the second does not. The second type of definition also includes people who have never moved from their “home” (their usual residence), but because of a change of borders—as with the successor states of the Soviet Union—now live in “another” country.

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India –> USA (1.1 million), China –> USA (1.1 million), and Vietnam –>USA (1.1 million)

(http://econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/ EXTDECPROSPECTS/0 ).

There are many kinds of human spatial mobility. Journeys may be short term or long

term, business trips, conference trips, leisure tourism, pilgrimage, package tour, backpacker’s

journey, etc. Migrations could be divided into, variously, temporary or permanent,

international or domestic, economical (labour) migration or political asylum, voluntary or

forced, legal or illegal.

Migrations: Interdisciplinary interest

Migrations are complex phenomena. “Migration is a subject that cries out for an

interdisciplinary approach” (Brettel, Hollified, 2008: vii). Migration has been researched from

various perspectives, but mainly in various social science disciplines. For demographers,

migrations are—with births and deaths—the major components of population change.

Demographers work on aggregate data and study migration flows. Sociologists and

anthropologists concern themselves with the social and cultural determinants and

consequences of migration. Sociologists more often research the receiving societies, while

anthropologists rather study the sending societies. Some key words for both disciplines

include ethnicity, minority, culture shock, acculturation, adaptation, assimilation, social

network, social capital, social exclusion, and xenophobia. Economists study the economic

causes and consequences of migrations. Their key words are human capital, labour market,

remittances, migration transfers. Political scientists research the relationship between

migration and states or political systems. Lawyers study the human and political rights of

migrants, including citizenship. Historians and geographers are also interested in migrations.

Migration: theories and trends

Since Ravenstein’s famous “laws of migration” (Ravenstein, 1885) several theories of

migration have been developed. The main approaches are economic, historical-structural,

systems theory, and transnational.

One of the more influential economic approaches, the neo-classical theory, explains

migrations by individual demand to maximizing its gain on the market. This is not confirmed

by empirical studies, which show that migrants recruit mostly within middle social status

(Castles, Miller, 2003). The new economics of labour migration (NELM) argues then that

the decision of the individual depends not only on income differences between countries, but

also on employment security, accessibility of investment capital, etc. This approach has also

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been criticized: “the idea of individual migrants who make free choices which not only

‘maximize their well-being’ but also lead to ‘an equilibrium in the marketplace’ (…) is far

from historical reality” (Castles, Miller, 2003:25).

Another set of traditional migration approaches are the “push–pull” theories. These

treat migration as a combination of factors that impel people from their places (e.g. poverty,

overpopulation, discrimination, war, etc.), and factors which attract migrants to certain

receiving countries (e.g. a high standard of life, income opportunity, political freedom).

The alternative to the above individual approach is the historical-structural approach,

using Marxist political economics and Immanuel Wallerstein’s “world system theory”.

Migration is here seen as “a way of mobilizing cheap labour for capital” from Third World

countries by hegemonic Western countries (Castles, Miller, 2003:25). According to Castles

and Miller, this approach is one-sided and does not explain some important processes, for

example the permanent settlement of labour migrants.

Migration systems theory tries to explain migration as the exchange of migrants

between two countries which are linked to each other. Migration is treated as a complex

phenomenon that needs more research on the levels of the micro- (family and local

community), meso- (e.g. the so-called migration industry, both legal and illegal), and macro-

structures (the world market, international relations), and needs to studied from

interdisciplinary points of view.

Transnational theory—the most recently developed—concerns the process of

“deterritorializing the nation state” and building a transnational community as a result of the

transport and communication revolutions. The approach concerns “transmigrants”, people

who circulate and repeat their mobility, acting transnationally, across borders. Transmigrants

have been, and are still, a minority among all migrants. Transnational theory is developed by

Saskia Sassen (1998), among others.

The general trends of contemporary migrations are globalization, acceleration,

differentiation, feminization, and politicization (Castles, Miller, 2003). Globalization means

that the number of countries affected by migrations has been rising. Acceleration indicates

that the international flows of people are growing in volume. Differentiation denotes that

there is more than one type of migration between particular countries, for example, migration

may be political or economical, permanent or temporary, etc. Feminization describes the

observation that the share of women in all regions and in all types of migrations has been

rising. And politicization indicates that international migration increasingly affects domestic

and international politics (Castles, Miller, 2003).

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The main causes of migration increase are “political, ecological and demographic

pressures” (Castles, Miller, 2003:4), conflicts and wars, the free market, and the globalization

of labour, but the most important causes are the growing inequalities between the rich North

and the poor South. In 1820, the differences between world regions were relatively small. The

gap between developed and developing countries has been increasing in modern era. In 1820,

the ratio of the GDP of the richest country (the United Kingdom) to the poorest region

(Africa) was 4:1 while in 1998 between USA (currently the richest country) and Africa that

ratio had increased to 20:1 (Sachs, 2005). Over 178 years (1820–1998), the average annual

growth of GDP per capita in the USA was 1.7%, but in Africa growth was only 0.7%. In

1820, the GDP per capita in Africa was 400 US dollars, compared with 1200 in the United

States (in 1990 international dollars); but in 1998, the GDP per capita in Africa was 1,200 US

dollars, compared to 30,000 US dollars in the USA (Sachs, 2005). According to UN data, in

1960 the richest 20 percent of countries had GDPs 30 times higher than the poorest 20

percent. After 35 years, in 1995, the ratio had grown to 82 times (Hurst, 2007). The gap

between high-income and middle-income countries has also grown. In 1975, the GDP per

capita in the richest countries was 8 times higher than in middle-income countries; in 2000,

the proportion was 14 (Martin, Abella, Kuptsch, 2006). GDP inequality also implies a

technological and civilization gap between regions and countries, which affects all spheres

from the political system to health care.

The main results of migration increase are transnationalism (whatever happens affects

more than one state), a cultural and ethnic diversity of societies that influences national

identity and could generate conflict, and growing role of remittances in the economies of the

sending countries (Castles, Miller, 2003).

Brief history of modern labour migrations

The Industrial Revolution and colonialism caused the first wave of relatively mass

migration. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Europeans migrated first to Africa and

Asia, and later to America and Australia. Simultaneously millions of Africans were enslaved

and forced to work in America. In the nineteenth century, the main source countries for

worker migration were England, Germany, France, America, and Australia.

The First World War, the economic crisis, and xenophobia resulted in decreased

international migration.

After the Second World War, the rebuilding of developed countries resulted in

drawing labour from less developed ones. Both labour recruitment and spontaneous labour

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migration grew. There were three main types of migration: “guest workers” (migrants from

peripheral European countries to Western Europe), “colonial workers” (from former colonies

to centres), and from Europe, Asia, and Latin America to North America and Australia

(Castles, Miller, 2003). The oil crisis of 1973–1974 marked the end of this period.

The oil crisis caused important changes in migration patterns. Western European

governments limited labour recruitment. Illegal migrations to those countries increased. “The

quest for control” became the main trait of Western migration policy. Family reunions of the

earliest migrants generated new mobility. Oil countries began recruiting foreign labour.

Southern European countries changed from countries which sent labour to recipients of

labour. The mobility of highly qualified people increased. “There is a trend towards

polarization: highly skilled personnel are encouraged to enter, either temporarily or

permanently, and are seen as an important factor in skill upgrading and technology transfer.

Low-skilled migrants are unwelcome as workers, but enter through family reunion as refugees

or illegally” (Castles, Miller, 2003:225).

Homecoming. Return migrations

Return migrations which close the “migration circle” until recently have not been a

very popular subject of either political discourse or research (Ghosh, 2000; Stefansson, 2004;

Harper 2005). One of the reasons is the difficulty of defining what “return” really means. In

spite of these difficulties, some such attempts have been undertaken. It has been estimated

than one third of the 52 million Europeans who emigrated to North America in the years

1824–1924 returned permanently to the old continent. The rate of return varies: in the period

1899–1924, 9% of Irish, 14% of German, 20% of British, 33% of Polish, 45% of Italian, 53%

of Greek, and 87% of Russian migrants left America. In the 1920s and 1930s during the

recession, the number of Europeans returning from the USA was higher than the number

immigrating (Wyman, 2005). Some authors suggest than return migration is negatively

selected, because only those migrants who did not succeed in the destination country return.

Most studies on return migrations are purely statistical. But a few researchers have tried to

make some propositions on return migrations: “for every emigration stream, there will be a

return stream (…) most emigrants intend to return when they emigrate (…). The propensity to

return is greatest soon after migration (…) return will vary in response to economic conditions

in the host country (…) [and] in the country of origin (…) most return takes places for

personal and social reason than economic or political ones (…) return will be higher amongst

those who have experienced no social mobility or occupational promotion in the destination

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country (…)” (King, 2000:41). Recently there have been papers published whose authors

analyse the return of migrants from a more anthropological and phenomenological

perspective (Long, Oxfeld, 2004; Markowicz, Stefansson, 2004; Harper, 2005). Instead of

statistical analysis, they conduct qualitative in-depth analysis of small communities and

individuals. They use humanistic term “homecoming” instead of the demographical “return

migration”. The theoretical frames for such studies are Alfred Schutz’s concepts of “stranger”

and “homecomer”. The theory explains the problems of re-emigrants’ adaptation. An

immigrant is a “stranger”, a “newcomer”, and someone who would like to become a member

of the new community. But the returning emigrant, like Homer’s Odysseus, is a “stranger” in

his homeland. “To the homecomer home shows—at least at the beginning—an unaccustomed

face. He believes himself to be in a strange country, a stranger among strangers (…). But the

homecomer’s attitude differs from that of the stranger. The latter is about to join a group

which is not and never been his own (…) The homecomer, however, expects to return to an

environment of which he always had and—so he thinks —still has intimate knowledge and

which he has just to take for granted in order to find his bearings within it. (…) So he feels;

and because he feels so, he will suffer the typical shock described by Homer” (Schutz,

1964:106–7).

Labour migration

13.5 million political refugees represent 7% of all migrants. Most of others are labour

migrants with their families. There are 90 million members of the migrant work force, which

constitutes 3% of the global work force (Martin, Abella, Kuptsch, 2006). There are countries

which are importers, countries which are exporters, and countries which are both importers

and exporters of labour force. The profits from labour migration are not equally distributed:

there are winners and losers. “The winners are large investors and employers who favour

expanded immigration as part of a strategy for deregulation of the labour market. The losers

are many of the migrants themselves forced into insecure and exploitative jobs with little

chance of promotion. Among the losers are also some existing members of the workforce,

whose employment and social condition might be worsened by such policies.” (Castles,

Miller, 2003:183–4).

The immigrant work force has become bipolar. There are two very different migrant

labour markets. The first, very often unwanted and illegal, is for unskilled badly paid jobs,

the so-called 3D jobs: “dangerous, difficult, dirty”. The second market is for high qualified

professionals who are “hunted” by corporations and governments.

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The largest labour migration is the flow of Mexicans, mainly unskilled, to the USA. In

2005, there were 11.5 million emigrants from Mexico, 10.7% of the total population of the

country. About 90% of these migrants live in USA. The number of Mexican migrants is

higher than the number of migrant Indians (10 million) or Chinese (7 million). Because its

emigrant community is dominated by low-skilled migrants, Mexico received relatively low

remittances (defined by the World Bank as “the sum of workers’ remittances, compensation

of employees and migrants’ transfers”

(http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPROSPECTS/Resources/3349341110315015165/Fact

book_Glossary.pdf). In 2007, Mexico received 25 billion US dollars (2.9% of its domestic

GDP), while India received 27 billion USD (2.8% of domestic GDP), and China received 25

billion USD (0.9% of domestic GDP).

Another huge migrant labour flow is that from the Philippines. About 3.6 million

Filipinos, or 4.4% of the total population, work abroad, mainly in the US, but also in the UK

and Australia. Labour migrants from the Philippines are of two types. Most migrated Filipinos

are female domestic workers, but a large number are nonetheless migrating medical

professionals. Almost 10% of the country’s physicians—9,800—work abroad, mostly in the

USA and the UK. For comparison, only India (with 20,300 physicians working abroad) and

the UK (with 12,200) have larger numbers of physicians working abroad. 85% of Filipino

nurses work overseas, yet the population per physician or nurse in the country is still almost

as high as in the UK (Kapur, McHale, 2005). Filipinos also specialize in commercial ship

crews. Remittances to the country in 2007 were 17 billion US dollars (13% of the GDP).

Labour migration is treated as important source of GDP and actively managed by the

government of the Philippines. Those who wish to work abroad are supposed to register in a

special office. The government also tries to protect its citizens abroad by arranging special

structures in the consulates. The Philippines is the major exporter of labour in Asia. Seven

million Filipinos, or 20% of the labour force, are working abroad. Their remittances are 10%

of GDP.

The largest importer of labour migration is the USA (38.4 million migrants in 2005,

compared with 12.1 million in Russia and 10 million in Germany). People working in the

USA in 2006 sent 42.2 billion USD remittances. This was followed by workers in Saudi

Arabia, sending 15.6 billion US dollars of remittances, and Switzerland, at 13.8 billion USD).

The main labour markets for the USA were Mexico, Philippines, Germany, India, China,

Vietnam, and Canada.

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The UK is both a significant importer and exporter of labour. In 2005, there were 5.5

million immigrants (9% of the UK population) in the UK, and 4.2 million (7.0% of the

population) emigrants from the UK. The United Kingdom is the second largest exporter of

physicians (after India). The country received 6.9 billion US dollars and sent 4.5 billion US

dollars of remittances in that year. Most immigrants are recruited from Ireland, India,

Pakistan, Germany, Bangladesh, Jamaica, South Africa, Kenya, and Australia, while the main

destination countries for emigrants from the UK were Australia, the USA, Canada, Ireland,

Spain, New Zealand, Germany, France, Netherlands, and Italy.

Highly qualified migrations

Most migrants from developing regions are low-skilled workers, but the migration of

university-trained people is growing. Thousands of doctors, engineers, and nurses from less

developed regions—mainly Asian countries—work in Europe, North America and Australia.

According to official statistics, in the 1990s, 69% of H-1B (i.e. employer-sponsored) visas

allowing migrants to work in the US were issued to Indians, Filipinos, Japanese, and Chinese

migrants. In Grenada and Dominica, 97% of educated physicians live abroad. This is a useful

solution for skilled people who cannot find jobs in their countries, but on the other hand it

leads to a shortage of professionals at home. In the Philippines, one of the main labour

resource countries, hospitals have been closed due of the shortage of qualified personnel, a

situation caused by migration to the UK. The demand for professionals may be beneficial for

the development of high education in poor countries. Remittances can be important for a

country’s economy. Migrants can return with new skills and experience. “Unfortunately,

many highly-skilled migrants find their appropriate employment in highly developed

countries restricted by difficulty in securing recognition of their qualifications, or by

discrimination in hiring and promotion practices. If they fail to get skilled jobs, their

migration is both a loss to their country of origin and a personal disaster” (Castles, Miller,

2003:171).

There is also another phenomenon—this time organized by corporations and

international organizations—namely, the mobility of professionals from developed countries

to the peripheries. “Capital investment in less-developed countries may be seen as an

alternative to low-skilled migration to developed countries, but it leads to movements of

skilled personnel in the opposite directions (…) it may encourage people from developing

countries to move to the investing country in search of training work” (Castles, Miller,

2003:171).

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There are three main ways in which skilled migrants raise income and growth in the

destination country. They can temporary fill vacant jobs, they can increase productivity and

innovations, and finally, they “can add to the labour supply in particular sectors helping to

hold down wage increases and reduce the cost of providing such labour-intensive services as

medical care and education” (Martin, Abella, Kuptsch, 2006:58).

Migration of highly skilled labour: basic terms

The migration of highly educated people, of professionals, and especially its

consequences for the sending country, is one of the most commonly discussed problems in

international migration. The flow of skilled migrants—educated human capital—has been

seen as damaging to the country that has invested in their education, particularly when this is

a developing country. Since the 1950s this has been called brain drain. The expression was

first used by the British Royal Society to describe the post-war outflow of scientists and

technologists from Europe to North America

(www.oecdobserver.org/news/printpage/php/aid/673/The_brain_drain).

The phrase brain drain suggests that the promotion of migration of educated people is

a form of exploitation of poor countries by rich ones. There are also some new terms which

have been popularized in the recent migration literature. Brain waste describes the situation

where educated migrants earn less than equally educated natives, or when their work duties in

the destination country are below their qualifications. There is “an extreme case of brain

waste, whereby an increase in education has no impact on income earned in the destination

country” (Ozden, Schiff, 2006:12). The brain gain expresses the “beneficial brain drain”

(Ozden, Schiff, 2006:11), understood as the development of education in the sending country

as a result of the higher salaries of educated migrants or as a “return of human capital and all

complementary investment from rich to poor countries” (Kapur, McHale, 2005:X). Brain gain

can be also understood as the reverse of brain drain, to the profit of the receiving country

(Martin, Abella, Kuptsch, 2006). Brain circulation illustrates a new phenomenon: the

international brain exchanges, and refers instead to the flows of professionals between

developed countries (Blitz, 2005; Teferra, 2005).

Axiological context of the brain drain debate

The debate on the consequences of skilled migration has since its inception been

involved in an ideological and axiological discourse. In the late 1960s, two respected

economists proposed two very different frames. Harry Johnson of the University of Chicago

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and the London School of Economics presented the view that he described as the

“cosmopolitan liberal position”. According to him, the policy reference is the world as

whole, not particular nation-states. State borders are artificial barriers to optimal labour

migration. The international flow of human capital is beneficial for the global economy and

expresses “the free choice of the individuals who choose to migrate” (Johnson, 1968:70).

Citizens are “not owned” by countries they were born. There is no reason to compensate state

outflow of skilled migrants.

Johnsons’ “cosmopolital liberal position” has been criticized by, among others,

Ellerman (2006), in the following manner: First, from the point of view of game theory, the

individual decisions of migrating workers will cause “the doors of potential host countries [to]

close, vastly raising the cost of migration and dissipating the benefits. A new, lower

equilibrium would be reached, with the benefits of neither migration nor development”

(Ellerman, 2006:23). According to Ellerman, the second weakness of the approach is that the

theory is one-sided, and rather opposed attempts to limitation out-migration, and not in-

migration.

The alternative “nationalist” position was developed by Don Patinkin of the Hebrew

University. He does not agree that “the world” should be considered as a single aggregate

from the welfare viewpoint, or that the welfare of this unit is maximized by the free flow of

resources between countries” (Patinkin, 1968:93). He argued that there is a “critical mass” of

migration and that, for example, 15% of students studying abroad could constitute a danger

for the country. Rejecting the liberal point of view, he did not recommend that developed

countries impose self-limits on skilled migration. Instead he suggested that developing

countries institute a policy of attracting skilled emigrants to return home, to recruit foreign

scientists to teach domestic students, and to encourage companies to establish domestic

branches. He suggested that training people in poor countries in their homelands could be

profitable for both the developed and the developing countries. Patinkin blamed Johnson’s

“cosmopolitan liberal” view for being a form of “nationalism”, but one favouring developed

countries only.

Ellerman suggests that the Johnson-Potinkin dilemma corresponds to two different

models of management: The Anglo-American logic of exit and the Japanese logic of

commitment. The logic of exit is oriented towards an individual searching for a better home,

while the logic of commitment is oriented towards a collective commitment to making the

home better. He refers to Ronald Dore’s proposal of educational reform based on the Japanese

management style (Dore, 1997), and to the “prisoners’ dilemma” in the game theory.

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Brain drain trends

Brain drain is more extensive than ever before. In 1990, migration to developed

countries represented 53% of world migration, but in 2000 this figure had reached 60%. The

migration of skilled workers to OECD countries increased 70% from 1990 to 2000, compared

with a total growth of 28% (Shiff, 2006). The average yearly number of skilled immigrants

from Africa was 1,800 during the years 1960–75, but reached 4,400 in the years 1976–1985

and 23,000 in the years 1984–87 (Docquire, Marfouk, 2006).

According to a pioneering study on the relationship between education and migration

(Docquire and Marfouk, 2006) in OECD countries, the share of migrants with lower than

secondary education decreased in the decade 1990–2000, while the share of migrants with

secondary and tertiary education increased.

Tab. 1 International Mobility by Education Attainment – an Overview

Categories 1990 2000

% of stock % of stock

Migrants with tertiary education (13

years of schooling and more)

12 462 29,8% 20 403 34,6%

Migrants with secondary education

(9-12 years of schooling)

10 579 25,3% 17 107 29,0%

Migrants with less than secondary

education (8 or less years of

schooling)

18 804 44,9% 21 512 36,4%

Source: on the base Docquire and Marfouk, 2006

The “world average emigration rate” for tertiary education increased from 5.0% in

1990 to 5.4% in 2000, and for secondary education, from 1.4% to 1.8%. The rate for less than

secondary education decreased from 1.2% to 1.1%.

The proportion of the highly educated in the emigrant population is everywhere higher

than in the resident population. Highly educated people are more mobile, more

“cosmopolitan”. But the gap between share of highly educated emigrants and residents

correlates very strongly with the country’s GDP. In the richest countries, the ratio of the

number of educated migrants to the number of educated residents is 1.24, but in poorest

countries it is 12.3!

14

Tab. 2 Share of skilled workers in 2000 among residents and emigrant by income groups

Income groups Residents Emigrants

High income groups countries 30,7% 38,3%

Upper-middle income countries 13,0% 25,2%

Lower-middle income countries 14,2% 35,4%

Low-income countries 3,5% 45,1%

Source: on the base Docquire and Marfouk, 2006

That probability that a member of the professional population will migrate is 0.25

times higher than among the general population in the richest countries, but in the poorest

countries this factor reaches as high as 12.

Tab. 3 Rate of emigration in 2000 total and skilled by region

Income groups Total Skilled

High income groups countries 2,8% 3,5%

Upper-middle income countries 4,2% 7,9%

Lower-middle countries 3,2% 7,6%

Low-income countries 0,5% 6,1%

Source: on the base Docquire and Marfouk, 2006

The larger the gap between educated emigrants and educated residents, the higher the

level of brain drain in a region. The gap between the education of emigrants and residents is

lowest in North America (1.12) and Western Europe (1.68), and highest in east Africa (22.66)

and Central Africa (19.3). The main losers in skilled migration are Africa, Oceania and Asia.

Tab. 4 Share of skilled workers in 2000 among residents and migrants by region

Region Residents in country Migrants in other countries

North America 51,3% 57,9%

Caribbean 9,3% 38,6%

Central America 11,1% 16,6%

South America 12,3% 41,2%

Eastern Europe 17,4% 34,2%

Northern Europe 19,9% 43,2%

15

Southern Europe 10,8% 18,2%

Western Europe 23,4% 39,3%

Eastern Africa 1,8% 40,8%

Central Africa 1,6% 30,9%

Northern Africa 7,5% 19,6%

Southern Africa 8,7% 62,1%

Western Africa 2,4% 42,%

Eastern Asia 6,3% 55,5%

South-Central Asia 5,0% 52,5%

South-Eastern Asia 7,9% 51,4%

Western Asia 11,4% 22,9%

Australia and New Zealand 32,7% 49,2%

Melanesia 2,7% 45,0%

Micronesia 7,1% 43,6%

Polynesia 7,1% 22,7%

Source: on the base Docquire and Marfouk, 2006

Map. 1 Share of country’s nationals with a university education who live in

an(other) OECD country.

16

The probability of skilled labour force migration and the probability of total labour

force migration are not very different in North America (0.9% and 0.8% respectively), but in

east Africa, skilled labour force member are more than 18 times more likely to migrate than

unskilled workers; in Central Africa this ratio is 16, and in west Africa, almost 15. For

Europe, Central America, west Asia and Australia, the migration rate of highly skilled labour

is about 1.5–2.0 times higher than unskilled, while for South America it’s 3 times higher.

Tab. 5 Rate of emigration in 2000 total and skilled by region

Region Total Skilled

North America 0,8% 0,9%

Caribbean 15,3% 42,8%

Central America 11,9% 16,9%

South America 1,6% 5,1%

Eastern Europe 2,2% 4,3%

Northern Europe 6,8% 13,7%

Southern Europe 6,6% 10,7%

Western Europe 3,3% 5,4%

Eastern Africa 1,0% 18,6%

Central Africa 1,0% 16,1%

Northern Africa 2,9% 7,3%

Southern Africa 1,0% 6,8%

Western Africa 1,0% 14,8%

Eastern Asia 0,5% 3,9%

South-Central Asia 0,5% 5,3%

South-Eastern Asia 1,6% 9,8%

Western Asia 3,5% 6,9%

Australia and New Zealand 3,7% 5,4%

Melanesia 4,5% 44,0%

Micronesia 7,2% 32,3%

Polynesia 48,7% 75,3%

Source: on the base Docquire and Marfouk, 2006

In 2000 the countries most affected by skilled migration in absolute terms (number of

people) were large countries: the UK (1.4 million), the Philippines (1.1 million), India (1.0

million), Mexico (0.9 million), Germany and China (0.8 million each), South Korea (0.7

million), Canada and Vietnam (0.5 million each), followed by Poland, the USA, Italy, Cuba,

France and Iran. In relative terms (as a percentage of the educated labour force) the most

17

affected regions were Central America, the Caribbean and central, west and east Africa. The

top losers were small countries: Guyana (89%), Grenada, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the

Grenadines (85%), Haiti (84%), and Trinidad and Tobago (79%). The proportion of skilled

emigrants in the total emigrant population was the highest in countries with rather low brain

drain: in Taiwan (78%), Qatar (70%) Kuwait (68%), United Arab Emirates and the

Philippines (67% each), Nigeria and Saudi Arabia (65% each), and Japan (64%) (Docquire

and Marfouk, 2006).

In 2000, the OECD countries with the highest net brain gain (proportion of difference

between skilled emigrants and skilled migrants to the resident labour force) were Australia

(+11.4%), Canada (+10.7%), Luxembourg (+7.3%), USA (+5.4%), Switzerland (+3.8%) and

New Zealand (+2.9). The OECD countries with the lowest net brain gain were Ireland (-

4.0%), Greece (-1.8%), Portugal and Mexico (-1.7% each), and Finland (-1.5%) (Docquire

and Marfouk, 2006).

Most educated emigrants are concentrated in few regions: the USA (about 50%),

Canada and Australia (together about 20%) and the UK, Germany, and France (together

15%). Only 15% of educated emigrants live in other countries.

The migration of highly skilled workers depends on the country. In the USA, the

largest foreign-born population 25 years and older are Mexicans (6 million), then Filipinos

(1.1 million), and then Indians and Chinese (0.8 million each). The percentage of migrants

with tertiary education in those top countries in 2000 was very different. While 80% of

Indians, 73% of Filipinos, and 54% of Chinese who migrated to the USA had tertiary

education, for Mexicans the figure is only 14% (Kapur, McHale, 2005). The emigration rate

of tertiary educated workers (as a percentage of emigrants) was the highest for Mexico (14%)

and the Philippines (11%), and lowest for India and China (2.5%). This means that Mexico

lost relatively more educated people than India, even if most Indians migrants are highly

skilled.

National case I.

High-skilled emigration from India

The abolition of slavery in British, French, and Dutch colonies in the middle of the

nineteenth century caused a shortage of labour on overseas plantations. Two Asian countries,

China and India, were the main alternative sources of unskilled labour. After independence in

1947, large numbers of educated Indians migrated to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the

UK, and the US. Also some of Indian origin migrated from Africa and the Caribbean to

18

Europe, mainly to the UK and the Netherlands. After the repeal of the US Immigration and

Nationality Act in 1965, larger scale migration begun from India to that country. Since the

mid-1970s, migration from India to the Gulf countries has also developed.

Now the Indian diaspora is large and important. More than 20 million Indians

(including 9.5 million who were born in India) live in 70 countries. The largest Indian

diasporas (over half a million) live in Myanmar (Burma, 2.8 million), the USA (1.7 million),

Malaysia (1.6 million), Saudi Arabia (1.5 million), the UK (1.2 million), South Africa (1.0

million), the United Arab Emirates and Canada (0.9 million each), and Mauritius (0.7

million). In some small countries such as Fiji, Guyana, Mauritius, and Surinam, Indian

migrants represent more than 40% of the total population. (Pandey, Aggarwal, Devane,

Kuzetsov, 2006). In 2000, 20,315 Indian physicians (3.8% of physicians trained in the

country) lived abroad, being the largest physician migrant population in the world. The

emigration rate of people with tertiary education3 in India is 4.2%, and in 2007 India was the

largest receiver of remittances in the world (27 billion USD, or 2.8% of the Indian GDP).

Immigrants from India play an important role in the UK, where 6% of medical doctors

are of Indian origin. Almost two thirds of all expatriate IT professionals who entered the UK

in 2000 were Indians. About 500 very rich Indians live in the UK, for example Lakshmi

Mittal (steel industry), Gulu Lalvani (electronics industry), and Jasminder Singh (hotel

industry). There are eleven members of Indian origin in the House of Lords, and four in the

House of Commons (Pandey, Aggarwal, Devane, Kuzetsov, 2006).

The Indian community in the USA is even more successful, where there are 200,000

Indian millionaires. Indian migrants are richer, better educated, and take higher positions than

average. The median annual income in the US Indian diaspora was 60,093 dollars, compared

with the median annual income for the whole population of 38,885 dollars. Two-thirds of

foreign born Americans of Indian origin have a university degree, three times the rate for the

US population as a whole. More than 40% of Indian immigrants are professionals: engineers,

doctors, lawyers, etc. The statistics are telling: 5% of physicians in USA are Indians, 0.3

million Indians work in the IT sector, 15% of IT start-ups overall and 40% of IT start-ups in

Silicon Valley were founded by Indians. Many prominent managers in the IT sector and

professors in prominent institutes (including MIT and Stanford University) are Indian.

3 The emigration rate of highly educated people from their country of origin is calculated by dividing the size of the highly educated expatriate population from the country by the total size of the highly educated native-born population of the same country (Highly educated native-born(i)= Expatriates(i) + Resident native born(i)). A highly educated person here is taken to mean a person with tertiary education. http://www.oecd.org/document/51/0,3343,en_2649_33931_34063091_1_1_1_1,00.html

19

Indian students in USA account for 14% of the degrees in science and engineering

granted by US universities. They are followed by Chinese students at 10%. Most Indian

students have declared plans to stay in the USA. In 2000, the percentage of doctoral-degree

holders of Indian origin in the USA was 8%, compared with 1% among American-born and

2% among other foreign-born. In the period 1985–2000, 13,000 people of Indian origin

received science and engineering doctorates at US universities. Most of these work in the

USA.

Those migrants who return to India very often establish IT and business outsourcing

companies in their homeland. The Indian diaspora is expected to develop new opportunities,

e.g. medical tourism, especially for Middle Eastern countries.

There are a few reasons behind the unique success of the Indian diaspora. First, their

ability to communicate in English is obviously very important. Second, the cost of labour in

India is significantly lower. In 1980, the annual salary of a software developer in India was 3–

5 times lower than in the USA. Third, India has had a tradition of scientific and engineering

education since Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of an independent India,

established a few institutes of technology in 1953. Even now the Indian government invests a

lot in education. Fourth, the dot-com boom, the Internet telecom boom, and the Y2K problem

all created huge demand for software developers. Fifth, a large proportion of educated Indians

work in India. “This allows Indian expatriates with innovative ideas to contact friends and

colleagues in India to help them execute them. In other developing countries, most good

professionals migrate to developed countries, leaving too few behind to take innovative ideas

forward” (Pandey, Aggarwal, Devane, Kuznetsov, 2006:95).

National case II.

Low-skilled migration from Mexico

Mexico is not only the major emigration country in Latin America, but labour

migration of Mexicans to the USA is the largest labour migration in the world, and the largest

“migration corridor”. The migration has its roots in the recruitment of workers for railroad

and mining companies in the nineteenth century, and in “bracero” programs of recruiting

Mexican peasants to work on US farms during the world wars.

Thirty five million Mexicans (including about 10 million Mexicans born in Mexico)

live in the USA. Their total income is 400 million dollars, comparable to that of Mexico itself

(Torres, Kuznetsov, 2006). Remittances have grown rapidly over the past decades. They form

only 2.9% of GDP, but they are a second source of dollar revenues and bring in 80% as much

20

as oil exports. In 2003, Mexican migrants send almost 5% of total the US income abroad. In

2007, Mexico received 25 million USD in remittances (the third remittance receiver, after

India and China). Remittances from the family are the largest part of the total, but are mainly

used for basic consumption. New forms of remittances have recently developed: community

remittances collected voluntarily and send by “migrants’ club” or “hometown associations”.

These latter are collective undertakings by low-skilled migrants. The other channel is that of

migrant savings.

The number of emigrants from Mexico in 2005 was 11.5 million, or 10.7% of the

population. The emigration rate of the tertiary-educated was high, at 14.3%. In 2000, 5,579

Mexican physicians, or 4.1% of physicians trained in the country, worked abroad. Illegal

migration from Mexico to the USA is estimated at 0.5 million a year, and is a significant issue

in Mexico–US relations.

The social and economic networks between Mexico and the US are increasing. The

distribution of remittances is different in particular Mexican states, some of which have

developed special programs, e.g. Three for One and the May Community, to help reduce

poverty.

Student mobility

Studying abroad is another type of mobility. The population of foreign students in

OECD countries in 2002 was highest in the USA (430,000), the UK (209,000), Germany

(171,000), France (148,000), and Australia (110,000). In these top countries the proportion of

non-OECD students varies from 40% in the UK to 82% in Australia (Kapur, McHale, 2005).

The proportion of foreign students in the total student population is different in

different countries. In 2006, among European OECD countries the average value was 10%.

The highest in was Luxembourg (42%), Switzerland (19%), the UK (18%), Austria (16%),

Germany and France (11% each), and Sweden (10%); the lowest values were found in

Hungary, Spain, Finland and Greece (3% each), Italy (2%), Slovakia, Turkey, and Poland

(below 1%) (Kudrycka, 2009).

The proportion of foreign students in the USA has increased from 1% in 1955 to 5% in

2003. In graduate programs the recent value was even higher, at 13% (Martin, Abella,

Kuptsch, 2006). Most foreign students in the USA (and in Australia as well) come from Asia.

Some of them stay in the USA, especially after completing a doctorate. In 1997, 11% of the

members of science and engineering faculties in the USA were Asian. In 1999, 90% of Indian

and Chinese students in the USA declared that they plan to stay there (Kapur, McHale, 2005).

21

Although “student movement to the developed countries may thus be part of the brain

drain” (Castles, Miller, 2003:172), the global liberalization of higher education stimulates

innovative activity. (Chellaraj, Maskus, Mattoo, 2006).

Consequences of skilled migration for sending countries

Traditionally, skilled migration was treated as a curse on developing countries that

needed to be reduced. In neoclassical economics, the outflow of every labour force was

treated as a factor that slows growth. In fact, at the end of the 1970s, Jagdish Bhagwati put

forward a compensation proposal, according to which migrants would be taxed by the

country of origin. Newer economic theories suggest that there may be some benefits of brain

drain for developing countries: “By allowing emigration (…) a developing country realizes

educational improvement for all citizens, migrants and nonmigrants, considered together,

which should induce more people to get more schooling. Not all of the newly educated will

emigrate, which explains the paradox of a drain leading to a brain gain” (Martin, Abell,

Kuptsch, 2006:61).

The central concept for this mainly theoretical kind of literature is brain gain.

According to this approach, brain drain raises motivation for education in developing

countries, allowing more money to be invested in education because of the inflow of

remittances, therefore making net brain gain possible, and also providing welfare support.

Empirical studies have however shown that “(a) the brain gain is smaller than has been

indicated in the new brain-drain literature, (b) the brain gain implies a smaller capital gain,

and (c) various negative effects on other sources, such as human capital, welfare and growth,

have not been taken into account” (Schiff, 2006:203). Some arguments which downplay the

significance of brain gain are as follows: the number of skilled individuals does not depend on

migration; the incentives for education are very often not alternatives to the benefits of

migration; migrants very often get jobs below their skill level (brain waste); brain gain can

be negative, because migration can cause lower demand for education, as in the case of rural

Mexican areas (McKenzie, 2006); increased investment in education could reduce other

public investments, e.g. in health (Shiffs, 2006). The effects of brain gain depend on the

patterns of migration: for example, the main migration destination for Latin Americans is

the USA; while for Africans and Middle Eastern workers, the main destination is Europe.

Latin Americans are less educated, but in general migrants to the USA are better educated

than those who migrate to Europe. (Shiffs, 2006). The success of the migrant depends on

nationality: “a hypothetical 34-year-old Indian college graduate who arrived in 1994 has a 69

22

percent probability of obtaining a skilled job, while the probability is only 24 percent for a

Mexican immigrant of identical age, experience and education” (Chellaraj, Maskus, Mattoo,

2006: 253).

Experts from the Centre for Global Development forecast that the problem of

international competition for talent will increase. “First, the skill bias of recent technological

advancements is leading governments to strive for a competitive advantage in emerging

knowledge-based industries. (…) . Second, international competition for skilled labour will be

abetted by the aging of rich-country populations together with the ever-expanding technical

possibilities for costly (and often high beneficial) health care. (…) Third, international

competition for talent is bound to increase because of the broader globalization of production

and trade.” (Kapur, McHale, 2005).

Martin, Abella and Kuptsch (2006) claim that the impact of emigration depends on the

three R’s: recruitment, remittances, and returns. Emigration could lead to virtuous circles

(a good example is the Indian IT workers) or to vicious circle (e.g. African health care

workers). “Virtuous circles are most likely if migrants are abroad for only a short time, send

back remittances and return with new skills and links to industrial countries that lead to

increase trade and investment. Vicious circles can be the outcome if migrants flee what they

believe to be sinking ship and cut ties to their countries of origin” (2006:70–71).

Kapur and McHale mention four main channels in which skilled emigration affects poor

countries. The first channel, prospect, means the impact of the prospect of emigration on

households and individuals decisions (e.g. concerning education) as well as on state policy

(e.g. the tax system). The second channel, absence, refers to the effect of absence of skilled

human capital in domestic institutions. The third channel, diaspora, represents the influence

of emigrants on the homeland economy: “in addition to being a source of trade, investment,

remittances and knowledge, a successful diaspora can play a critical role in reducing barriers

to international business through its role as ‘reputational intermediary’ and thus help poor

countries integrate into global production chains and international trade” (Kapur, McHale,

205:4–5). The last, forth channel, return, refers to the influence of homecomers with their

money, skills, networks, and patterns of behaviour.

Kapur and McHale do not concentrate on either the effects of skilled migration of

emigrants themselves or on workers of destination countries, but on “those remaining behind

(TRBs)” (2005:6) in the sending countries. Even prospective high-skilled emigration could

change homeland economics and politics. It could have positive or negative effect on human

capital formation. Education may be perceived as an alternative for improving one’s life by

23

migrating to more developed countries, but the effect may also be quite contrary, as in the

case of Mexico, where the attractiveness of earning few times greater income as an unskilled

worker competes with the attractiveness of education (McKenzie, 2006). The forecast of the

outflow of highly qualified people, e.g. teachers, physicians, or nurses could change public

sector payment and tax policies (Kapur, McHale, 2005). A significant absence of talent will

affect “those remaining behind”. The first result is the loss to the homeland fiscal system.

Skilled workers are higher tax payers, but they pay tax abroad. These fiscal losses could result

in lower public health and public education budgets, both of which threaten development. The

other negative consequence is the loss of potential spillovers. The next is the absence of

specialized skills, e.g. nurses or teachers, and the loss of important institutions. Kapur and

McHale gave an example of the mass dismissal of Jewish scientists in Germany in 1933,

which caused that “within a decade, the locus of global sciences and technology had moved

from Germany to the United States, and English replaced German as the lingua franca of

science” (Kapur, McHale, 2005:96–97). The loss of human capital is highest in Africa. A lack

of educated people can also make more democratic development more difficult in a poor

country. The high migration rate of physicians may cause a dramatic shortage in the service

they provide. In some small Caribbean countries, most locally trained physicians work abroad

(in Grenada and Dominica as many as 97%; in St. Lucia, 66%; in Cape Verde, 54%). In

African countries the rate of physician emigration is lower (34% in Liberia, 26% in Ethiopia,

25% in Somalia, 22% in Ghana), but the consequences have been even more dramatic. In

Ghana there are about 16,000 people per physician, one of the worst values of this indicator in

the world, twenty times higher than in the Philippines, one of main physician-exporting

countries (Kapur, McHale, 2005).

The diaspora affects the sending country directly via investment, cooperation, travel,

remittances, communication, and network-building. But it also has an indirect influence,

because emigrants play the role of “reputational intermediaries” (Kapur, McHale, 2005:110)

in destination countries. Their members stimulate the transmission of ideas across borders. A

survey performed in 1999 showed of that three quarters of Indian migrants and half the

number of Chinese migrants hoped to start businesses back home (Devane, 2006). Chinese

and Indian diasporas in Silicon Valley have facilitated the development of domestic high-tech

firms. Research has shown that some members of the diaspora are crucial for economic

development. “Expatriate mobilization efforts for investment might best be focused on mass

mobilization (the alumni model), or even on politically active or wealthy philanthropic

members of the diaspora community. The key players are expatriates who have become senior

24

executives in relevant companies” (Devane, 2006:66). As Kuznetsov’s research on diasporas

has shown, expatriate communities have three main resources that built their unique position:

a very high motivation to influence the situation in their homelands, “expertise”, and very

often financial resources (2006).

Returns play a similar role to diaspora and remittances. The return of Irish emigrants

transformed the country into the “Celtic Tiger” and changed the country from being a

traditional country of emigrants into country of immigrants.

The term “remittances” means money sent by migrants to their homelands.

Remittances are a relatively new subject of migration research, and there is a shortage of

statistical data. The amount of remittances has grown. and for developing countries had

reached 79 billion US dollars in 2000, and 126 billion US dollars in 2004, almost 4 times

more than net official development assistance. Remittances are perceived as important for the

economies of countries sending migrants, as they reduce the poverty not only of particular

households, but even of certain regions, and cause changes in patterns of inequality (Yang,

Martinez, 2006). But an important part of remittances flow to developed countries. The

largest sources of remittances in the years 1992–2001 were the USA (21 billion US dollars

per year on average), Saudi Arabia (15 billion), Germany (9 billion), and Switzerland (8

billion). The main recipients were India (8 billion USD per year on average), France (7

billion), Mexico (6 billion), Philippines (5 billion), Germany and Portugal (4 billion each).

Only a very small part of the remittances flow to Africa. Two main migration countries, India

and China, receive very different remittances: China gets only one-seventh of India’s receipts.

But overseas Chinese invest several times more than Indian migrant. Some research shows

that households receiving remittances spend more on investment, as in the case of Guatemala

(Adams, 2006), but other research disagrees and argues that most remittances are spend on

consumption, sometimes conspicuous (Ellerman, 2006). Even so, remittances to Latin

America have increased domestic consumption. Kapur and McHale (2005) suggest that

remittances do not flow to the poorest households, because the poorest do not migrate.

Kapur and McHale propose the following policy on brain drain: “control, when

absolutely necessary; compensation when it is feasible; creation and connection whenever

possible” (2005:7). Control refers to limitations on the flow of skilled migrants.

Compensation means a policy aimed at those remaining behind, e.g. the Bhagwati exit tax,

aid to human capital recruitment, sharing of income tax. Creation is the policy of developing

human capital in underinvested sectors like education and health care, both in developed and

25

in developing countries. Connection means support for those remaining connected with their

homelands economically and socially, including the policy of incentives for homecomers.

“Give us your best and brightest”. The international competition for talent.

Most countries receiving migrants have developed special migration management

programs. The majority of these programs are intended to incorporate temporary workers into

the labour force without increasing the population of permanent residents. Procedures are also

selectively oriented towards migrants: “migrant experience ranges from red carpet welcomes

for some computer programmers to red card detention and deportation for some apprehended

unauthorized workers” (Martin, Abella, Kuptsch, 2006:x).

Developed countries compete for skilled workers, scientist, physicians, nurses, engineers, and

managers. Some of these policies are oriented towards permanent residence, and some others

towards temporary. A permanent migration policy may include lists of particular jobs (as in

the USA) or a system of points for general skills, e.g education, experience, or language (as in

Canada, Australia, Germany, and the UK). Additionally, the procedure for receiving full

citizenship also varies by country.

Temporary admit policies mainly insist on the possession of a job offer and relations

with the domestic labour force. Details such as visa length, the right to travel with family,

spousal employment, labour tests, etc. are very different. It could be a “green card” for IT

specialists in Germany, a “work permit” in the UK, or a “H-B1” visa in US. International

recruitment has also become a growing industry. Companies charge migrants for arranging

jobs in destination countries (e.g., 7,500 USD for finding a teaching job in the USA).

International organizations support return migration to the poorest countries with

special programs. The Internal Organization of Migration provides professionals returning to

Africa with the intention of working in that public sector with travel and housing assistance,

as well as wage subsides. The UN Transfer of Knowledge Through Expatriate Nationals

program offers subsidies for teachers and scientists returning to their countries of origin.

(Martin, Abella, Kuptsch, 2006).

Conclusions

Migration is a complex phenomenon and needs an interdisciplinary approach. The

mass flow of migrants and its social, economical, cultural, and political consequences for the

migrants themselves, their families, and local communities, for “those who are left behind” in

the sending countries, for employers and employees in the receiving countries, and for the

26

world as a whole, are sensitive and difficult problems. All this is even truer in the case of

skilled migration, which is less recognized than migration in general, being more a matter of

different ideologies and interests. The international migration of highly educated people can

be seen from the “cosmopolitan liberal” or the “nationalist” point of view. It could be

analysed with the “logic of exit”, or the “logic of commitment” (Ellerman, 2006).

The patterns and effects of highly skilled workers are different in particular cases.

Among the winners is India. The migration of Indian IT professionals to Silicon Valley has

stimulated the development of a high-tech domestic industry. Among the losers are east and

central Africa, where the emigration of a huge part of the very small educated elite is a barrier

to escaping poverty, and to the development of the domestic economy and democracy.

Depending on both facts and value systems, the migration of professionals may be

treated as brain drain, brain gain, brain waste, or brain circulation. Very generally, comparing

the growth in high-skilled migration with the growing GDP gap between the richest and

poorest regions of the world, the brain drain hypothesis appears to be better-grounded than the

brain gain one. There is no doubt that in the post-industrial, developing knowledge-based

economy, and the globalized world, the problem of skilled migration will only increase. And

we will need adequate solutions, if we are to agree that sustainable development is better than

polarized development.

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