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Brain Drain

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Brain BRAIN DRAIN AND IMPACT
ON DEVELOPMENT

OAS Special Committee on Migration
13 January 2009
Washington

Presentation Outline
Background and Overview

Issues and Impacts

Policy Responses
2

Brain drain
• Outflow of persons
– Volume
– Relative to the wider economic and social environment – Compensatory movements
• Cost benefit analysis
– Est 5% global liberalization of labour migration could contribute $300b p.a to world welfare
(greater than ODA or FDI)
– Even a more conservative increase by developed countries of 3% of their total workforce would increase world welfare by more than $150b p.a.
3

Migration data
• Neither globally nor regionally established data collection mechanisms
• No consensus on definitions
• Incompatibility of data from different sources at national, regional and international levels
• Stock data – no flow data: only limited reflection of true level of migration
• Data on specific migrant groups from receiving countries– often not compatible
• Trafficking and irregular migration – very limited knowledge. 4

Background
• World total migrants in 1980: 100 million
– 47.7 million were in developed countries, compared with 52.1 million in developing countries. 2002 – 40.8 million migrants live in North American countries
(13% of the pop)

• 2006: out of a global total of some 190 million migrants – 61 million had moved South - South, 53 million North
-North, 14 million North -South and 62 million South –
North

• 49.5% of global migrants are women
5

Key trends in movement
• growing feminisation of migration flows
• the increasing selectivity of migration towards the highly skilled
• THUS, consequences for the sending countries. 6

International migration in the
Caribbean – characteristics
• Various migration flows: Intra-regional, inter-regional and international migration;
• Source, transit and destination countries;
• Formal & informal migration;
• Temporary, circular & permanent mobility;
• Brain-drain, undocumented migrants, return migration, labor-migration, tourism, etc… .
7

Caribbean Characteristics
• Middle income countries, high to medium HDI
• BUT,
– persistent poverty and inequalities;
– highly indebted economies,
– dismantling of trade regimes decline in overseas development aid (ODA);
– high unemployment rates
– increasing cost of living

• Economically motivated migration may help to alleviate tensions between population trends and job creation.
8

Negative Effects capital outlay that went from primary to tertiary future taxes which their income would have generated skills which would contribute to national development 9

12 Commonwealth Caribbean states experience high levels of skilled migration which alongside remittances as a % of GDP are among the highest in the world

10

Avoiding the pitfalls
• Threshold emigration rate: 15 – 20% in lowincome countries
• Average optimal emigration rate: 5-10%
• NOTE
– 23% of developing countries exhibit a brain drain smaller than 5% per cent
– 41% exhibit a brain drain smaller than 10%
11

So, what is the CARICOM
Response?

• Well above the brain drain threshold
• 70% of the work-force with tertiary education migrated to industrialized countries • Countries with high emigration rates:
Guy, Gren, Ja, SVG, Haiti, T&T, SK
13

Sectors – hardest hit
• HEALTHCARE:
– 2001-2004: more than a quarter of the 13,046 nursing positions
– 1,199 new nurses graduated (2000-2004) /900 nurses left the region in the same period

• EDUCATION:
– Jamaica with a population of under 3 million lost to the UK between 2001– 3 nearly 1000 teachers, more than Canada with a population of 30 million
– Guyana trains 300 teachers each year and loses that number to migration overseas
14

Nurse Vacancy rates (2005)
Country

%

Antigua and Barbuda

17.5
20.6

Barbados
Dominica
Grenada
Jamaica
St. Kitts and Nevis
St. Lucia
St Vincent and the
Grenadines
Trinidad and Tobago

6
4
58.3
26
4
15.7
53.2

15

Implications of Nurse Migration
Remittances

?

Return

+/-

Knowledge and Skills transfers

+/-

Changes/efficiencies

+

Staff shortages

-

Losses of specializations

-

Low morale

-

Undervalued professions

+
16

Pull factors
• Social and demographic factors
– Deficit of human resources
– Compensatory mechanisms – migration
• 40% of teachers in industrialized countries will retire over the next decade
• developed countries have 142 potential entrants into the labour force (persons aged 20-24) for every 100 persons (aged 60-64) BUT in just 10 years, this ratio will drop to 87 young persons per 100 aged 60-64
• developing countries today have 342 young persons for every 100 persons aged 60-64 and this excess, while declining, will continue to be high in the
17
coming decades

Push factors
• Professional and personal development
• Remuneration (salary adjusted for PPP)
Nurses

Teachers

(US$ per month)

(US$ p.a.)

Canada

2812

26,000 (Toronto)

UK

2576

42,000 (centr Lond)

US
CARICOM

3056
913 (in T&T)

39,000 (NY)
9000 (Kingston, Ja)
18

Migration Rate of Persons with Secondary and
Tertiary Education to OECD States
COUNTRY

1990

2000

Secondary

Tertiary

Secondary Tertiary

Antigua and Barbuda

31.7

65.33

35.9

70.9

Barbados

24.8

63.5

24.3

61.4

Belize

48.6

62.6

49.2

51.0

Grenada

61.1

68.8

69.5

66.7

Guyana

30.6

89.2

34.1

85.9

Haiti

23.7

78.3

27.5

81.6

Jamaica

28.9

84.1

30.0

82.5

St. Kitts and Nevis

21.4

89.9

37.1

71.8

the 56.7

89.8

53.4

50.8

Suriname

54.0

92.0

43.9

89.9

Trinidad and Tobago

19.3

72.2

20.6

78.4

St

Vincent
Grenadines

and

19

Government Expenditure on Education, Average,
1999-2002
(per student, as a per cent of GDP per capita)
Country

Primary

Secondary

Tertiary

GDP/capita

Barbados

17

26

62

18,200

Belize

17

19

8,400

Dominica

21

35

3,800

Guyana

1

2

4,700

Jamaica

16

24

St. Kitts and Nevis

9

9

8,200

St Lucia

13

2

4,800

St Vincent and the
Grenadines

28

28

3,600

Trinidad and Tobago

14

15

76

69

4,600

19,700
20

Remittances
• Growth of migrant remittances (North to South)
– 1995: US$48 billion
– 2006:US$199 billion
– LAC:
• 2007: US$66.5 billion
• 2008: US$67.5 billion (est)
– + remittances through informal channels – 50% increase 21

Remittance flows to developing countries $bn

Base case
2008e 2009f
283
280

2010f
297

Low case
2009f
2010f
267
270

E. Asia &
Pacific

62

63

66

60

61

Europe & C.
Asia

54

53

57

51

53

LAC

61
35

61
32

64
34

58
30

58
29

51
20

51
20

55
21

48
19

49
19

Dev countries Middle East &
n. Af
S. Asia
Sub-Saharan
Af

22

Implications of Global Financial
Crisis
• 20M Job losses Worldwide, 100M working poor Living under S2 per/day [ILO 2008]
• Tightening of planned migration intake
• Intensified labour market tensions
• Remittances impacted
• Return Migration/Brain Drain Reversal?

23

Brain waste
• Non-recognition of qualifications, parity, transferability
– Devaluation of skills and competentices
– Compensation

• E.g.
– Teachers not holding European qualifications do have
“qualified teacher status” – paid less
– Nurses are obliged to pursue 3-6 month prog before they carry out their professional duties

• IMPACT:
– Source
– Destination
24

Gender
• Av emigration rate of tertiary educated women: 17.6%;
13.1% for men
• 5 countries with the highest emigration rates for females are all from the Caribbean
• Jamaica: 122,800 (females) 67,912 (males) highly skilled immigrants in OECD countries (2000)
• Opportunities for young professional women
– Rising female educational attainment in source country
– Occupational concentration
25

Gender Inequity
Emigration of tertiary-educated women may have a distinctive impact on origin countries
• For highly skilled women, the negative impact of absence on remaining family members - not compensated for by remittances
• Effects come through “gender differences in emigration” rather than “total emigration rates”
• Emphasis on role in social & economic development, human capital accumulation
26

Regional Initiatives in progress
● RNB-CARICOM-PAHO/CPC-Commonwealth

Secretariat: ‘managed migration for nurses’;
● CARICOM/CSME: free movement of the

skilled; skills database; accreditation; contingent rights

27

Policy responses: leveraging human resource skills


Manage flows through incentives, linkages and increased investment to mitigate harmful depletion of key sectors






Encourage return to source country
Retain nationals thro Education policy
Establish bi/multilateral arrangements
Manage recruitment of migrants
Support expatriates in Diaspora by expanding benefits 28

• Control: promote economic stability thereby encouraging retention and return
• Creation: expansion of opportunities (educ) to promote and leverage skill output
• Connection: link to Diaspora, transnationalisation of social capital
• Compensation: direct compensation to governments for human capital loss
29

Thank you!

CP21497T

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