INTERNATIONAL MOBILITY
E migration among the highly skilled is nothing new. For a myriad of reasons, talented citizens may decide to leave their home country and move to another to pursue better employment or education opportunities. For the home countries, the impact is often referred to as ‘human capital flight’. Countries receiving talented or skilled individuals experience ‘brain gain’, while those losing skilled workers and great thinkers might refer to a ‘brain drain’. The brain drain term was first coined by the Royal Society in 1963, in relation to an exodus of top scientists from the UK to the US after the Second World War. Nowadays, some commentators prefer the term ‘brain mobility’, but this masks the reality that the process revolves around highly skilled labour leaving one (often developing) economy to move to another (often developed) one. Brain drain examples by numbers A current example of brain drain is the migration of health workers and other medical professionals moving to live and work in the US, UK, Australia and Canada. The impact of this is felt in source countries such as Albania, where the movement of medical students and young doctors to wealthier EU and OECD countries leaves the country facing a healthcare worker shortage. According to a recent paper from Ilir Gedeshi, director at the Centre for Economic and Social Studies in Tirana, Albania, more than half of these professionals do not wish to return. India has also experienced significant brain drain, with many of the country’s brightest high-school graduates seeking opportunities abroad. Led by Harvard Business School’s Prithwiraj Choudhury, a 2023 study of the 1,000 highest scorers in a 2010 admissions exam for the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology revealed that 36 per cent had migrated abroad by 2018. Furthermore, among the top 100 scorers, 62 per cent left India in this timeframe. In efforts to reverse the impact of a loss of talent, the Indian government has initiated a series of schemes and fellowships that are designed to motivate its citizens abroad to return home. In Sub-Saharan Africa, highly skilled workers are 13 times more likely to migrate than those defined as low-skilled, according to a paper from Romuald Meango at the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of the Sciences. Sub-Saharan Africa is perhaps most at risk, where only around nine per cent of people are enrolled in tertiary-level education compared to the global average of 38 per cent, according to 2020 figures from the World Bank. In addition, among 4,500 18–24-year-olds across
15 sub-Saharan countries who responded to the African Youth Survey 2022 , 52 per cent said they were likely to consider emigrating in the following three years. Many cited economic hardships alongside a lack of education opportunities, work and safety as major reasons. When it comes to highly skilled managers, those looking to emigrate tend to face fewer barriers than other professionals. Indeed, there are relatively limited certification requirements or impediments to work in a destination country when compared to, for example, medical or other technical professionals. Yet, an exodus of talent not only deprives a country of crucial human capital, but also exacerbates existing development challenges. The departure of skilled workers leads to a shortage of expertise in key sectors, hindering economic growth and impeding progress in healthcare, education and technology. The loss of intellectual capital, meanwhile, perpetuates a cycle of underdevelopment and undermines a developing country’s efforts to innovate and compete globally. The role and responsibility of higher education Educational opportunities are an important source of motivation for travelling abroad and when large numbers of international students decide not to return to their home countries after graduating, a brain drain occurs. Business schools are, in the majority, committed to supporting the aspirations of talented individuals from all regions of the world, wherever these may take them, most often through tuition scholarship programmes. Schools also recognise how enrolling cohorts that reflect the diversity of the planet’s population benefits their students. After all, on completion of their studies, graduates will be working in an increasingly connected global workplace. However, while traditional inbound scholarship programmes often benefit individual students, it often means that their talents and skills are no longer available to their home country; talents and skills that could be integral to supporting that country’s further development. ESMT Berlin offers a case in point. Using annual data dating back to 2012, the school has observed that a relatively low number of MBA and MSc graduates from developing countries on full-tuition scholarships return to their home countries after completing their studies. A total of 52 Kofi Annan Fellowships have been awarded to ESMT Berlin MBA and MSc candidates from developing countries to study full time in Germany since 2012, providing them with full tuition and living stipends. Among fellows who have graduated with an MBA, only 30 per cent have returned to their home country. For MSc graduate fellows, this figure is just five per cent. Some scholarship schemes attempt to combat this effect by requiring or expecting scholarship recipients to return to
Ambition | SEPTEMBER 2024 | 27
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