Brain Drain
ECLAC, the Economic Comission for Latin America and the Caribbean, has just published its report on “Migración Internacional, Derechos Humanos y Desarrollo en América Latina y el Caribe”.
The Comission has found that 25 million Latin Americans have left their countries in 2005 (13% out of the 280 million world-wide migrants). Even though some of the Latin countries have more than half a million nationals across their boundaries, the number still seems tiny, if one considers that it stands for less than 1% of the population of the region.
Brazil, for instance, received 683 thousand immigrants (0.4% of the population), almost just as much as the 730 thousand who left the country (same 0.4%) in 2000. The estimated 600 th non-resident nationals sent home in 2005 almost 3.2 bi dollars (among which, may I add, 564 mi from Japan, though these numbers come from another source, the Brazil Central Bank’s Boletim Mensal Mar/2005). Even though the number might be small to large economics such as the Brazilian, these transferences are particularly important to small economies like Haiti, Nicaragua and Honduras (to which the remittances accounts for 24%, 11% and 10% of their respective GDP, considerably larger than the FDI received in the same 2000).
Although the report pays much more attention to main mass migration from Latin American countries (such as gender imbalances and remittance), I would like to focus on a question that is just as emphasized and personally challenging to me: the so called Brain Drain (or “la Fuga de Cerebros”).
The news are not good and the report starts by stating that almost 3 out of 4 Latin-American students who go abroad to get their Ph.D. in the U.S. do not return. According to them, amid the relevant consequences are (1) the augmented inequalities, (2) the spread of knowledge critical mass and (3) the effects on growth.
The reports defends that the main cause for the phenomena is something one might translate as “under-use of human resources” (la Subutilización de Recursos Humanos). With the concept, it defends that the given economies does not fully employ their resources, especially for the work-force tends to grow faster than the highly qualified employment demand (though it is accounts for no more than 20% in most countries).
Besides, it keeps pointing out, most of the highly qualified Latin Americans living abroad are not employed according to their education background. Half of the undergraduate Latinos are not employed in management or technical vacancies. This “Waste of Education” (Desperdicio Formativo) could be used in their own countries.
Therefore, there are “many reasons points out to that highly-qualified emigration won’t stop”, if Labor Markets won’t start behaving closer to developed countries’, when it comes to employment, under-employment and outsourcing.
Personally speaking, at least for this issue, the report seems to reflect much more the personal view of the researchers (who probably don’t live in their own countries) rather than most of the scholars working abroad.
Good news is that I am not alone. The bad one is that we are all screwed!
The Comission has found that 25 million Latin Americans have left their countries in 2005 (13% out of the 280 million world-wide migrants). Even though some of the Latin countries have more than half a million nationals across their boundaries, the number still seems tiny, if one considers that it stands for less than 1% of the population of the region.
Brazil, for instance, received 683 thousand immigrants (0.4% of the population), almost just as much as the 730 thousand who left the country (same 0.4%) in 2000. The estimated 600 th non-resident nationals sent home in 2005 almost 3.2 bi dollars (among which, may I add, 564 mi from Japan, though these numbers come from another source, the Brazil Central Bank’s Boletim Mensal Mar/2005). Even though the number might be small to large economics such as the Brazilian, these transferences are particularly important to small economies like Haiti, Nicaragua and Honduras (to which the remittances accounts for 24%, 11% and 10% of their respective GDP, considerably larger than the FDI received in the same 2000).
Although the report pays much more attention to main mass migration from Latin American countries (such as gender imbalances and remittance), I would like to focus on a question that is just as emphasized and personally challenging to me: the so called Brain Drain (or “la Fuga de Cerebros”).
The news are not good and the report starts by stating that almost 3 out of 4 Latin-American students who go abroad to get their Ph.D. in the U.S. do not return. According to them, amid the relevant consequences are (1) the augmented inequalities, (2) the spread of knowledge critical mass and (3) the effects on growth.
The reports defends that the main cause for the phenomena is something one might translate as “under-use of human resources” (la Subutilización de Recursos Humanos). With the concept, it defends that the given economies does not fully employ their resources, especially for the work-force tends to grow faster than the highly qualified employment demand (though it is accounts for no more than 20% in most countries).
Besides, it keeps pointing out, most of the highly qualified Latin Americans living abroad are not employed according to their education background. Half of the undergraduate Latinos are not employed in management or technical vacancies. This “Waste of Education” (Desperdicio Formativo) could be used in their own countries.
Therefore, there are “many reasons points out to that highly-qualified emigration won’t stop”, if Labor Markets won’t start behaving closer to developed countries’, when it comes to employment, under-employment and outsourcing.
Personally speaking, at least for this issue, the report seems to reflect much more the personal view of the researchers (who probably don’t live in their own countries) rather than most of the scholars working abroad.
Good news is that I am not alone. The bad one is that we are all screwed!
posted by fmgoto at 2:38 AM
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