TUAC NEWS
The brain drain is a serious problem for many developing countries
09/01/2008
For many developing countries, the brain drain represents a significant problem, says the World Bank's Global Economic Prospects 2008. High rates of skilled out-migration imply a net transfer of human capital and scarce resources (in the form of the cost of educating these workers) from low- to high-income countries. In some small countries emigration rates of highly educated individuals can exceed 60 percent (see figure). Since 1990, the highly educated diaspora of developing countries has doubled in size. However, the share of developing country tertiary-educated individuals living abroad remained stable and relatively low, those with a tertiary education is 4 percent. However, the rate for graduates in science and technology are much higher. A case in point is provided by graduates of the elite Indian Institutes of Technology; the rate of its graduates living abroad ranged from 20 to 30 percent in the 1980s and 1990s.
Global Economic Prospects 2008 is available for download at http://www.worldbank.org/gep2008