Human Capital Flight

Human capital flight or most commonly known as brain drain is phenomenon involving the outflow of skilled professionals from one country to other mainly is pursuit of better job prospects and/or better standards of living .

The phenomenon has received mass criticism, as the name itself suggests “Brain Drain” involves one country’s best minds helping the development of another, thereby jeopardizing the chances of growth for the source country. Although these arguments put forth by the critiques are valid to some extent, there is another side to the coin.

There are 7 billion people on the face of this planet of which 3% are residing outside their place of origin. There are adverse effects country has to pay. For example, the country of Malawi, in the past has endured a major crisis in its healthcare industry due to the mass exodus of Malawian doctors and nurses to the countries like USA. A research suggest that there are more Malawian doctors in USA than total doctors in Malawi.

Now for the flip side of the event brain drain might not be such of a bane than a boon for developing countries. A major proportion of country’s GDP comes from remittances from abroad, these remittances are the very money that the professionals send to their home country. A study shows that approximately one third of Tajikistan’s GDP comes from remittances from abroad.

This is an issue which needs substantial recognition in these modern times with all facts and figures in the front of us. The question that come up are: “Is this rat race of learning outside beneficial for the country? On account of the dependence on gifts and money being sent back to the source? Or is it just for mere personal gains that we are leaving our motherland; leaving it alone to die?”