The term brain drain was coined by the spokesmen of the Royal Society of London to describe the outflow of scientists and technologists to the United States and Canada in the early 1950s. Since then the term has become synonymous with human capital or the migration of highly educated individuals from the developing, mostly third world countries, to the developed ones.
Over the past few decades, more since Pakistan has been lurched full throttle into economic and political chaos, the phenomenon has become the bane of the society. The number of repining Pakistanis who wish to settle abroad is rising every year and the ones who are actually capable of breaking loose are coincidentally the educated ones, contributing alarmingly to the growing crisis of the Pakistani brain drain. To leave the country and settle abroad has become the zeitgeist of current day Pakistan.
Unfortunately either the government does not realize the severity of the problem or prefers to brush it under the proverbial rug like so many other issues. The migration of the Pakistani professionals to foreign countries, namely, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand has increased considerably with young educated and skilled Pakistani such as doctors, IT Experts, scientists and other professional either already gone or planning to leave. The fact that workers from all skill levels are losing or have completely lost faith in the economic future of the country was revealed by the Gallup survey that indicated that even the semi-skilled and unskilled workers want to migrate outside in search of better prospects. 62 percent of the adults who were surveyed expressed the desire to migrate abroad while 38 percent said that they would prefer to settle outside permanently.
It is often thought that the transmittance of funds by the ones who leave the country as a result of brain drain is a good enough substitute for these individuals actually staying in the country and working. But that idea is valid only to a minimal extent as there can be no substitute for services these professionals could be rendering the country by staying within the borders and adding to a far rapid economic, scientific and technological development of the country. Again, that can only happen if the proper infrastructure is provided to them whereby the country could earn manifold the money it receives from transmittance from the migrated workers.
According to Dr. Fitzhugh Mullan of George Washington University every doctor who leaves a poor nation leaves a hole that cannot be filled. He says,
“That creates enormous problems for the source country and the educational and health leaders in the country who are attempting to provide healers”.
Research shows that at 20 countries export more than 10 percent of their physician work force to richer nations with nearly no reciprocation as the US exports less than one-tenth of 1 percent of its doctors. Economic factor is primarily responsible for this mass migration of the scientific community from poorer, host countries like Pakistan. In Pakistan the value placed for a scientist with an advanced level degree is Grade 17 which comes with a salary that is totally insufficient to meet the basic requirements of a family. So it is no surprise that the advanced countries are exploiting the situation by offering these individuals far more handsome incentives.
Asif J. Mir writes in ‘Pakistani Think Tank’,
“We cannot achieve long-term economic growth by exporting our human resource. In the new world order, people with knowledge drive economic growth. We talk a lot of poverty alleviation in Pakistan. But who is going to alleviate the poverty-the uncreative bureaucracy that created poverty? Hypothetically, the most talented should lead the people, create wealth and eradicate poverty and corruption”.
Phillip Bonosky, contributing editor of Political Affairs, writes in his book Afghanistan-Washington’s Secret War.
“Pakistan seems to have nothing but problems. Endemic poverty which was Great Britain’s imperial gift to the colonial world-a poverty on which the sun never sets-skilled (badly needed in Pakistan itself) abroad in search for jobs. Hardly any country has suffered more from the brain drain than has Pakistan. Nearly 3,000 (annually) graduates of Pakistan’s medical colleges are jobless; most go abroad. The educated see their future not in their home country but in any country but their own”.
According to a report in the The Observer, London,
“Pakistan is facing a massive brain drain as record numbers of people desperate to leave their politically unstable, economically chaotic country swamp foreign embassies with visa applications-The biggest number of applications for British visas are from Pakistan. Doctors, lawyers and IT professional and leading the exodus, but laborers and farmhands are joining the queues of malnourished people who gather daily outside the US embassy in Islamabad”.
The greatest effect of brain drain on any country is what is seen in Pakistan today; rampant corruption, poor administrations, lack of motivation and a fast diminishing nationalism. Unless there is nationalism there can be no collective progress and poverty and crime will continue to increase under the umbrella of plethoric apathy. Whatever the solution it needs to come fast and it needs to be come now otherwise – when the educated are away, the uneducated will play – as they are playing at the moment.
Photo Credits: Flickr.com. Clicking on the photos will take you to their source pages.
@Pakistani authorities should have, long ago,
with-held quite many National passports, but Pakistani
politician is a born corrupt animal, they must be held accountable of their treason.
The concept of Pakistanis who go abroad end up investing their foreign earnings in Pakistan is largely a myth.
Barring exceptions, the “investments” they make is more so to amass personal wealth rather than taking part in entrepreneurial ventures or anything that remotely allows job-creation. (i.e. they invest their money in stock markets, real estate etc.)
Atif said:
[i]Also when a few professionals leave the country they improve the job chances for those left behind, hence there is lesser incentive for those left behind to move abroad.[/i]
you say that like it’s a very efficient way of going about things. surely, someone professional can do the job better than someone not-as-professional.
Isn’t emigration (brain drain) an historical social phenomenon? People have been emigrating voluntarily and involuntarily throughout history. Europeans emigrated to the US in the 17th through 20th century, including some of the great names in science and education. Chinese, too, emigrated to the US in large numbers in the early 20th century. It enriched the US and didn’t hurt Europe or China either. Therefore, I don’t think the current ‘brain drain’ will hurt Pakistan in the long term. On the other hand, it could benefit Pakistan not only in terms of the much needed and talked about remittances but also in terms of back and forth flow of talent, ideas, information and investments.
The problem of brain drain is simply exaggerated. It has always happened in history and will continue to do so for ever because there would always be people looking for greener pastures. It happened when a large number of Europeans moved to America. It happened when a large number of Russians moved out. Now these countries are facing reverse migration. So things change and they would change for Pakistan as well.
While looking at migration one should not loose sight of one of the main reasons. Pakistan’s population growth rate is around 2%, which means the population increases by more than 3 million, around the same number as in the USA. But USA’s population is almost double that of Pakistan. So many people are jobless in Pakistan and they obviously want to move abroad. But the population growth rate is going down and would go down further and finally reach the stable level, whatever it is. The fertility rate, which is currently 4 children per woman, would ultimately go down below 2.1, which is the replacement level. I wonder if there would be much emigration at that level. All the major countries where people love to migrate have population growth rates of 1% or less. Sooner or later Pakistan’s population growth rate would be less than 1%.
Also when a few professionals leave the country they improve the job chances for those left behind, hence there is lesser incentive for those left behind to move abroad.
Also the proportion of young people in Pakistan is very high and they are the people looking for entry level jobs. Thus there is a lot more competition at that level for jobs with far fewer jobs, hence the starting salaries are not good. So many young professional like to move abroad. But as they gain experience their incomes rise were quickly because there is lesser competition for experienced people and they make a lot of money. So the incentive to move abroad decreases with more experience. And hence many experienced people also like to return.
It is not true that the educated people can only make as much as a grade-17 officer. It all depends on their skills and qualifications. Obviously if they just get a BA and have no other marketable skills they are going to get a grade-17 pay or even less. So many people don’t learn the skills valued by the market and end up doing mean chores. That is bad decision making on their part. Because many people see their incomes rising 5-10 times within 5-10 years of starting their jobs and that is not exceptional.