Thoughts on Economics
Vol. 18, No. 01
Brain Drain in Islamic Countries: How to Reverse
Dr. S. M. Ali Akkas*
Abstract: The paper is an extension to Docquier and Marfouk (2006) analysis of brain drain phenomenon worldwide with particular emphasis on Muslim countries. It follows the methodology and data sources used by Docquier and Marfouk (computation of emigration stocks and rates by education attainment in origin country in 1990 and 2000 for 174 and 195 countries respectively) and subsequently modified by Beine, Docquier and Rapoport (2007a) in defining brain drain.
The study finds, though countries like Guyana, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey are among the most suffered countries by brain drain, Islamic countries as a whole are relatively less sufferer which echoes the comment of Docquier and Marfouk (2006) that the Islamic countries as a whole are not strongly affected by brain drain.
1. Meaning and Measurement
Brain drain refers to a one-way flow of highly skilled and educated people moving from their home country to another in search of better jobs, pay, or living conditions. It is differentiated from brain exchange, which implies a two-way flow of highly skilled individuals between a sending and a receiving country, and brain circulation, which refers to the cycle of moving abroad to study or acquire skills in one country and then returning home to work.1
Alternatively speaking, brain drain or human capital flight is an emigration of trained and talented individuals ("human capital") to other nations or jurisdictions, due to wage differentials, lack of opportunity, conflicts, health hazards where they are living, discrimination or other reasons. It parallels the term "capital flight" which refers to financial capital that is no longer invested in the country where its owner lived and earned it. Investment in higher education is lost when a trained individual leaves and does not return.2 This phenomenon is widespread in most developing nations, particularly in Muslim countries.
Docquier and Marfouk (2006) defined brain drain in terms of skilled emigrants as a proportion to stock of skilled population living in a country.
* Director, Planning and Development, Bangladesh Open University, Gazipur, Dhaka.
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Denoting Nj t;s as the stock of individuals aged 25+, of skills, living in country j, at time t, the emigration rates is defined by:
M.jt,s
mj t,s =
Nj t,s +M.jt,s
In particular, mj t;h provides some information about the intensity of the brain drain in the source country j. It measures the fraction of skilled agents born in country j and living in other OECD countries.
Before Docquier and Marfouk (2006), a numerous case studies and anecdotal evidences (Carrington and Detragiache 1998, 1999; Adams 2003; Beine, Docquier, and Rapoport 2003; Commander, Kangasniemi, and Winters 2004; Docquier and Rapoport 2004) are available, but without systematic empirical assessment of the brain-drain magnitude. Docquier and Marfouk presented a comparative structure of brain drain worldwide between groups of countries in terms of their income level, geographical location, and also region of special interest, such as Islamic counties under OIC compared to other groupings. The latest work as a refinement to Docquier and Marfouk’s calculation of skilled migration appears in a recent study by Docquier and Hillel Rapoport (May 2007). Table-1 & 2.
The methodology and data sources used in Docquier and Marfouk (2006) study are the computation of emigration stocks and rates by education attainment in origin country in 1990 and 2000.3 In this computation, migrants of all working-age foreign-born individuals living in an OECD country have been counted. Skilled migrants are those who have at least tertiary education attainment wherever they completed their schooling. The methodology proceeds in two steps: first, computing emigration stocks by education attainment from all countries of the world; and then, evaluating these numbers in percentage of the total labor force born in the sending country (including the migrants themselves).4
Docquier and Marfouk (2006) collected data on the immigration structure by education levels and country of birth from most OECD countries in 1990 and 2000. They published emigration rates by education level for 195 countries in 2000 and 174 countries in 1990. Their estimates address two of the problems arising from the Carrington and Detragiache (1998, 1999) database: under-reporting for small countries and transposition of the US immigration
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education structure to the rest of the OECD countries (and, in addition, they provide data for a second year, 2000). To take care of these problems, Beine, Docquier and Rapoport (2007a), building on Carrington and Detragiache estimates, used immigrants’ age of entry as a proxy for where education has been acquired. They provide alternative measures of the brain drain by defining skilled immigrants as those who left their home country after age 12, 18 or 22, and to do so for 1990 and 2000. (Table-2).
2. Size, Structure and Destinations of Brain Drain
2.1 Magnitude of Migration in the Past
Data available on size and the education structure of international migration suggest that brain drain is now much more extensive than it was two or three decades ago. The number of highly skilled emigrants from Africa increased from 1,800 a year on average during 1960–75 to 4,400 during 1975–84 and 23,000 during 1984–87 (Haque and Jahangir, 1999). The trend continued in the 1990s in the face of the increasingly “quality-selective” immigration policies followed in many OECD countries. Since 1984, Australia’s immigration policy has officially privileged skilled workers, with candidates being selected according to their prospective “contribution to the Australian economy.” New Zealand Immigration Policy 1991 was a shift from a traditional “source-country preference” toward a “points-system” selection, similar to that in Australia (Statistics New Zealand 2004). The similar Canadian immigration policy resulted in higher share of highly educated people among the selected immigrants. For example, in 1997, 50,000 professional specialists and entrepreneurs immigrated to Canada with 75,000 additional family members, representing 58 percent of total immigration. Since the Immigration Act of 1990, USA emphasizes selection of highly skilled workers through a system of quotas favoring candidates with academic degrees or specific professional skills. The annual number of visas USA issued for highly skilled professionals (H-1B visas) increased from 110,200 in 1992 to 355,600 in 2000.
EU countries are also leaning toward becoming quality selective. As reported in Lowell (2002a), “European Commission President Prodi has called for up to 1.7 million immigrants to fill an EU-wide labor shortage through a system similar to the US green cards for qualified immigrants.” A growing number of EU countries (including France, Germany, Ireland, and the United Kingdom) have recently introduced programs aiming at attracting a qualified labor force
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especially in the field of ICT through the creation of labor-shortage occupation lists (Lowell 2002b).
2.2 World Migration and Brain Drain — an Overview
Docquier and Marfouk (2006) database provides an estimated total number of adult immigrants living in the OECD area aged 25 or more at 59 million for 2000 and 41.8 million for 1990 (Table-3). In 2000, individuals with tertiary education were 36% of the immigrant population in OECD countries, while those with primary education were 35%. The OECD emigration rates by education levels are 1.1%, 1.8% and 5.4% respectively for low-skill, medium-skill and high-skill workers. According to the United Nations (2002), between 1990 and 2000 the number of individuals living outside of their country of birth increased from 154 million to 175 million, reaching a level equivalent to 3% of the world population.
At the world level in 2000, highly skilled immigrants represented 34.6 percent of the OECD immigration stock, while only 11.3 percent of the world labor force had tertiary education. Between 1990 and 2000, the percentage of skilled workers among immigrants increased by 4.8 percentage points (from 29.8 percent to 34.6 percent). In 2000, the number of migrants with tertiary education living in the OECD countries amounted to about 20.4 million, of which 2.4 million came from Islamic countries (11.9%).
The share of migrants who completed their secondary school degree increased from 25.3 to 29.0 percent. Consequently, low-skilled migration becomes increasingly less important in relative terms (44.9 percent in 1990 and 36.4 percent in 2000). In absolute terms, the size of all groups has increased. More than 85 percent of OECD skilled immigrants live in the six largest immigration countries. About half (50.7%) of these immigrants are living in the United States; 13.4 percent live in Canada, 7.5 percent in Australia, 6.2 percent in the United Kingdom, 4.9 percent in Germany, and 3 percent in France. Contrary to other major receiving countries, the proportions of high-skilled migrants have decreased in Canada and Australia between 1990 and 2000. Between 1990 and 2000, the share of immigrants in the US population increased from 8% to 11% and in the EU population increased from 5% to 7% (Docquier and Marfouk, 2006). Grogger and Hanson (2007) mentions while North American attracts only 38% of emigrants with primary education, USA and Canada attracts 66% of emigrants with tertiary education. In Europe, the shares are flipped, as it attracts 22% of emigrants with tertiary schooling but 53% of emigrants with primary schooling.
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Between 1990 and 2000, the number of highly skilled emigrants from OECD countries increased less than the number of working-age highly skilled residents. The average emigration rate of OECD highly skilled workers decreased from 4.1 to 4.0 percent. Regarding non-OECD countries, the number of highly skilled emigrants increased more than the number of highly skilled residents. The skilled migration rate increased from 6.6 to 7.2 percent in non-OECD countries. The same rate as a whole for Islamic countries is 7.1%. This shows aggravation in brain drain situation in developing as well as Muslim countries.
The most affected regions by rate of skilled migration are the Caribbean (42.8%) and areas in the Pacific Oceania (Micronesia 44.0%, Melanesia 32.3% and Polynesia 75.2%), which are groupings of small islands. Other remarkable areas are Eastern Africa (18.6%), Middle Africa (16.1%) and Central America (16.9%). The difference between skilled and total emigration rates is especially strong in Africa (10.4%, 1.5%). This is essentially the result of the low level of education in that part of the world (Frédéric Docquiera and Hillel Rapoport May 2007).
The share of Islamic countries in the OECD immigration stock is 14.4%, of which 11.9% belong to skilled category (Table-4). While total emigration rate of Islamic countries is 1.6%, the rate of skilled emigration is 7.1%. Whereas the share of skilled workers among residents in Islamic countries is 5.9%, the share of skilled workers among migrants is as high as 28.7% compared to Asia (46.8%), Oceana (45.0%) and Africa (30.9%), Sub-Saharan Africa (42.6%), UN least Developed Countries (34.0%), UN Land Locked Developing Countries (37.0%), UN Small Island Developing Countries (37.6%), European Union-15 (32.5%). Of course, Arab countries (a subset of Islamic countries) are more affected by the brain drain than Islamic countries as a whole (Arab skilled emigration rate 7.8% compared to 7.1% of Islamic countries).
When compared the individual country position, Guyana, one of the Islamic countries, tops in the world with the highest rate of skilled emigration. Among the Middle and Low-income Top-30 Skilled Emigrant Countries, in terms of highest skilled emigration rate, 8 are Islamic: Guyana (89.0%, 1st), Gambia (63.2%, 15th), Mauritius (56.1%, 17th), Sierra Leone (52.5%, 19th), Suriname (47.9%, 20th), Mozambique (45.1%, 22nd), Kenya (38.4%, 26th), and Uganda (35.6%, 29th) – six being in the lower-15 echelon (Table-5).
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Among the Top-30 highest stock of skilled emigrants countries, 7 are Islamic: Iran (308774, 8th), Pakistan (222534, 14th), Turkey (174437, 16th), Egypt (150596, 22nd), Nigeria (149528, 23rd), Morocco (141238, 25th), and Guyana (118263, 30th). Among the Lowest-30 Emigration Rate Countries, 12 Islamic countries are: Turkmenistan (0.2%, 1st), Tajikistan (0.4%, 2nd), Oman (0.6%, 4th), Uzbekistan (0.7%, 6th), Kyrgyzstan (0.7%, 7th), Maldives (1.2%, 9th), Kazakhstan (1.2%, 10th), Azerbaijan (2.0%,12th), Indonesia (2.1%, 13th), Libya (2.4%, 16th), Chad (2.4%, 18th), Burkina Faso (2.6%, 20th). (Table-5. source: Docquier and Marfouk, 2006). Here out of twelve Islamic countries, nine are within the lowest-15 emigration rate countries.
That means, Islamic countries as a group representing 30% countries of the world are less than one-fourth of the most suffered 30 countries, and queued mostly in the bottom half of the listed countries. Within the least suffered 30 countries, 40% are the Islamic countries mostly queued in the bottom half of the listed lowest emigration rate countries (Table-5). This echoes the comment of Docquier and Marfouk (2006) that the Islamic countries as a whole are not strongly affected by brain drain.
3. Brain Drain: Cost and Benefit
3.1 Gains and Losses in OECD Countries
On the whole, OECD countries benefit from the international mobility of skilled workers. The net gain (defined as the net immigration of skilled workers, expressed in percentage of the working-age resident population) amounts to 1.6 percent in 2000, compared with 1.0 percent in 1990. The net brain gain has globally improved in all OECD countries. Hence, the 1990 balanced situation in Scandinavian countries turned into a net brain gain in 2000. The EU-15 deficit turned into a quasi-balanced situation. The main winners of this brain gain between 1990 and 2000 are Australia (11.4%), Canada (10.7%), and Luxembourg (7.3%) followed by the United States (5.4%), Switzerland (3.8%), and New Zealand (2.9%). Conversely, Ireland, Greece, and Portugal experienced a brain loss of 2 percent (Docquier and Marfouk, 2005).
3.2 Costs for the Source Countries
The brain drain increases the scarcity of highly needed skilled labour in developing countries and consequently reduces long-run economic growth and income. In addition, if highly educated workers continue to immigrate to richer countries, public funds spent on higher education in order to promote
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growth may be to a large extent inefficiently applied.5 The proposition is subscribed by a study when it says, if emigration promotion reduces relative supply of skilled labor, it could adversely affect developing countries (Bhagwati and Hamada, 1974).