IDEA RESEARCH PROJECT
(SOUTH INDIAN EDUCATION SOCIETY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS STUDIES)
(An Autonomous College under Mumbai University)
Nerul, Navi Mumbai- 400706
RESEARCH PAPER ON
Brain drain and incentivising reverse brain drain for students of
professional education in India
Submitted By
NAME
ANUSHKA YADAV
ATHARVA PRADEEP BANARASE
GUNJAN BHARTI JK
JUHI AGARWAL
MRINAL RAMACHANDRAN
SWATI SINGH
ROLL NO.
69
70
74
77
86
95
COURSE
PGDM (CORE)
PGDM (CORE)
PGDM (CORE)
PGDM (CORE)
PGDM (CORE)
PGDM (CORE)
Under the guidance of
Dr. Sharmila Mohapatra
DIVISION
B
B
B
B
B
B
ABSTRACT
Human capital, Skilled or unskilled, has always been a vital resource in the country's growth
and development. For a country like India, with a raging economy and a young population
vying to become a global powerhouse, the importance of skilled and technically sound
human capital is even greater. However, over the last three decades, India has seen a yearon-year increase in students seeking higher technical education in countries such as the
United States, Canada, and Australia. Some of the factors that drive brain drain in
developing countries include a lack of technological advancement, political and economic
instability, and a low quality of life. The emigration of high-potential individuals to other
countries has been dubbed ‘Brain Drain’. In contrast, ‘reverse brain drain' refers to the
movement of human capital from a more developed country to a less developed/rapidly
developing country. Reversing the effects of brain drain can be extremely beneficial to the
country's economic and technological growth.
This paper investigates the causes of the exponential increase in student emigration for
professional education, strategies for slowing brain drain & incentivizing reverse brain drain,
as well as the benefits of reversing the brain drain.
KEYWORDS:
Brain drain, Reverse Brain Drain, Skilled labour, human capital, emigration,
immigration, technological advancement, economic stability, standard of living
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:
1. The purpose of this research is to learn more about the idea of brain drain.
2. To learn the true reasons for people leaving the country and relocating overseas
3. To learn how we can re-incentivize reverse brain drain and keep the countries most
talented minds in the country.
4. To learn about the difficulty that a country faces when people migrate to other countries
5. To learn about the approaches that can assist us to reintroduce those outstanding minds
from other countries who have left the country and relocated abroad.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The term "brain drain" refers to significant emigration or migration of individuals to more
developed countries due to the availability of better job possibilities in other nations, or the
desire to improve one's standard of living. Brain drain can occur at the organizational or
industrial levels as well as geographically when people perceive better salary, benefits, or
upward mobility within another company or industry. When understanding the phenomenon
of why students leave for overseas, we have noticed most of the finest and talented people
have a thought process that they will be valued more outside. This research on brain-drain
states facts why student wish to go abroad and choose to remain in the host country for the
job and future settlement. Another concept that is studied here is reverse brain drain that
displays facts that their returns are because of family attachments & higher position in the
career opportunities or improved opportunities. Both brain drain and reverse brain drain
depicts that these international movements lead to a way of flow of skills, technology or
sometimes even capital.
Brain drain is influenced by both push and pulls influences. Greater employment rates,
higher wages, and a perceived improvement in quality of life are all pull factors, but high
youth unemployment and a high enterprise death rate are push factors.
For example, Today, Canada's population is primarily composed of the elderly populous. As
a result, they obviously require young and intelligent Indians to move to their country in the
name of education and, eventually, to help their country's economy.
To the above concept we add another fact fascinating concept of brain circulation.
International mobility is of increasingly dynamic nature and the ongoing process of
repatriation is not the end point of process and the returnees may move or re-expatriate
Several times in their career in a phenomenon known as "brain circulation". Now the
question is why some of the returnee’s intent to re-expatriate to abroad is especially
interesting because most returnees are in fact holding better positions in their home country.
By virtue of their overseas education and experience, in this document we try to review and
understand various concept as why the students who come back after completing their
overseas education plan to leave back to other countries again!
One of the primary reasons that India's young, talented labour population leaves is in search
of higher compensation for their efforts and talent. Furthermore, greater salaries are not the
only motivation for trained individuals to migrate out of India; one of the key reasons for
families to emigrate out of India is the entire social safety net. While the United States
remains the most popular destination, Canada is gradually coming up. The vision of a
welfare state in which a family's basic requirements of education and health are met or are
available at a reasonable cost is too good to pass up.
When it comes to Brian Drain, it's not just students and young talented professionals that
want to travel overseas. But there is another developing trend among millennials who, for
example, are leaving India for mental peace and the freedom to live their lives as they see fit,
free of the harsh societal diktats and regulations that Indian society imposes on us. Yes,
things have changed in India, but the speed of social development has been slow to say the
least; meanwhile, the world over, particularly in the West, the pace of change appears to be
much faster.
The Indian government is implementing several ways to tackle brain drain, including
emphasizing skill development through the National Skill Development Mission, which
intends to train around 400 million individuals across the country by 2022. However, this
will not be enough to entirely halt the momentum. It would be a mistake to see brain drain
through a restricted prism like the one indicated above. The most pressing requirement is to
first understand what drives people to leave India. As a country, we need to ask ourselves a
lot of things. The issues of life quality, work possibilities, social structure, financial and
social security, development, gender equality, and freedom in all aspects of life.
Reverse brain drain is a type of brain drain in which human capital transfers in reverse from
a more developed country to a developing country. These migrants may save money, known
as remittances, and learn skills that can be employed in their home country. With India
bullish on economic growth, recent occurrences indicate that the country is currently facing
reverse brain drain. Indian professionals trained and stationed in the United States are
returning in greater numbers to take advantage of the country's rising economic trajectory
and associated job prospects in science. Several things can influence reverse brain drain. In
this research, we will study why brain drain occurs in the first place and how we might
incentivize reverse brain drain.
Theoretical Underpinnings.
The pull push theory - The pull push theory explains intentions of going overseas with push
factors encouraging individuals to leave their home country and pull factors attracting people
to a particular country. Push Factors are generally the negative factors and are related to
home country such as unemployment, Poor quality of living etc; while pull factors are
positive and associated with destination countries, such as good job opportunities or better
living standards, Career opportunity, educational opportunities, and quality of life in the host
country are the most frequently cited reason for students to move around abroad. Indian
students feel and most often expect they will have better professional development and better
- working environment in the host country. Better education and better future are the major
pull factor in the host country
It is also a fact that education system in India has a very stiff competition for Students and
not everyone gets into their interested field of study and hence move get opportunity abroad
for similar opportunities with easier entrance bars. It’s even said that it’s easier to get into
Harvard than to get into IIM Ahmedabad. Apart from this, India also faces problems of
negative political effects, high inflation, insecurity, and communalism and various other
tensions in the country. A better quality of life in the host country attracts Student from our
country with the promise of better Salary, Higher quality of life, or better career
development, working condition and the finest education opportunity with minimum
entrance barriers.
Compared to host countries pull factors, home countries push factors are most silent
predictors of student’s will to move abroad. Home country push factors are negative aspects.
As per students, after they complete their professional course when it comes to working
relatively outdated slow and bureaucratic working environment are major concerns for them
besides low salaries, lack of autonomy and satisfied working environment are major push
factors
This is reinforced by a lack of independence in the ability to conduct research leads to
dissatisfaction among students and researchers with the research culture in India. Students
feel that their capabilities are not recognised. Some students also feel lack of motivation and
inability to exercise creativity in their respective field of study or work and non-career
related factors as mentioned, such as more crowd, more pollution, lack of respect for
personal space with lower security and poorer housing conditions.
The theory of push & pull factors from host and home country respectively is limited in its
ability to fully explain the association between the home and host country decisions in
studying abroad
The push-pull theory does not consider other problems like psychological variable that
explains student's experience even when they plan or think of returning.
Thus we propose reverse culture shock and cross culture readjustment theory for
understanding incentivising reverse brain drain are part of Re-entry experiences. Re-entry
experiences are responses of returnees to their home country after returning from their host
countries. Negative re-entry experiences result in negative environment and feelings about
life, career and work in home country which promotes a feeling in students to avoid coming
back.
Reverse culture shock refers to psychological difficulties experienced by students who return
to their home country after a significant period living in another country and culture is
Reverse culture shock includes factors like alienation, not belongingness, loneliness,
isolation, inferiority, depression and general" anxiety. It sometimes also includes feelings of
less freedom in their home Country, feelings of conflicts, discomfort, and disappointment
when re-entry does not meet returning student's expectations. RCS mainly focuses on
affective aspects, such as health problems psychological distress, anxiety, depression, and
emotional difficulties.
Now next upon we have cross-cultural readjustment. This is described as a positive response.
Cross - cultural readjustment includes work, general and interaction readjustment, when we
refer to work readjustment, it means the adjustment of individuals in their work field and
career. General adjustment on the other hand concerns the overall adjustment of the
individual's general psychological comfort with the home country's environment, including
food, housing climate and living conditions. Interaction readjustment is defined as an
individual's psychological comfort in areas of social networking and interpersonal
Communication.
JASPERTAP SINGH and V.V. KRISHNA (2016),” Trends in Brain Drain, Gain and
Circulation: Indian Experience of Knowledge Workers” says that this era's natural
phenomenon is the migration of Highly Qualified Professionals. International migration of
highly qualified professionals, such as surgeons, physicians, scientists, and engineers, from
low-income nations to more rich economies, particularly the United States, is known as brain
drain. This growth in the human capital pool of advanced countries is due to differences in
salary and research facilities, as well as an oversupply of specialised graduates in less
developed countries.
Various studies conducted in India in the 1970s and 1980s quantified brain drain, revealing
worrying rates of loss in the form of skilled workforce migration. The main reasons for brain
drain from India were cited as a demand and supply mismatch of skilled workforce,
inadequate working conditions, economic issues, a lack of retaining government policy,
inadequacy of research facilities, a lack of research fund, a lack of freedom, and low
occupation income. In recent decades, brain drain scholarship has taken on a fresh slant,
attempting to investigate the other side of the issue. Brain gain, sometimes known as 'brain
gain,' is the second-generation impact of brain drain. By the 1990s, the situation had
changed, and there had been a significant surge in scholarship enumerating the good side of
brain drain in the form of brain gain. Scholarship viewed migrant skilled labour as a remote
asset and classified it as a brain bank in another country. India went through two periods.
Roli Varma and Deepak Kapur (2013), "Comparative analysis of Brain Drain, Brain
Circulation and Brain Retain: A Case Study of Indian Institutes of Technology"
highlights the comparative analysis of Brain Drain, Brain Circulation and Brain Retain. The
study has illustrated the comparison by taking an example of Indian Institutes of technology
students who have preferred going abroad. After conducting the case study, the reasons for
migrating were analysed with respect to multiple factors. The study also has reflected the
impact which has been created on India from mobility.
Sunita Dodani and Ronald E LaPorte (Nov, 2005): “Brain drain from developing
countries: how can brain drain be converted into wisdom gain?” highlights the fact that
when people migrate, this results in a significant loss of resources, with the destination
nations reaping the immediate benefit of not having to pay for their education. Intellectuals
are some of a country's most expensive resources, both in terms of material costs and time,
and, more crucially, in terms of missed opportunities.
In 2000, about 175 million people, or 2.9% of the world's population, had spent more than a
year outside their home country. Around 65 million of them were economically active. When
many European professionals immigrated to the United Kingdom and the United States in
the 1940s, international migration became a serious public health concern. The World Health
Organization (WHO) produced comprehensive 40-country research on the size and flow of
health professionals in the 1970s. According to the survey, nearly 90% of all migrant
physicians were headed to just five countries: Australia, Canada, Germany, the United
Kingdom, and the United States. In 1972, over 6% of the world's physicians (140 000)
worked outside their home nations. Only three countries accounted for more than threequarters of the total: the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, in that order. The
major donor countries reflected colonial and linguistic relations, with India, Pakistan, and Sri
Lanka dominating. This has led to the recognition of PUSH-PULL factors. In 1995, 79% of
doctoral graduates in science and engineering in the United States were from India.
Healthcare migration to developed countries is currently primarily coming from developing
countries, particularly South Asia. Concerns have been raised that the outflow of healthcare
personnel is negatively impacting the healthcare system in developing countries, and hence
the population's health. The liberal global economy's fundamental goal of opening
international borders for products and labour is accompanied by a vocabulary change from
'human capital flight' and 'brain drain' to 'professional mobility' or 'brain circulation.' As a
result, solutions should be founded on a broader perspective, considering health workforce
inequalities not just between, but also within, developing and developed countries. And the
paper also stated that how the ability to maintain and attract regional talent depends on the
availability of both high-quality education and research possibilities.
Raveesh S. (May, 2013),” Brain Drain: Socio-Economic Impact on Indian Society”
states that Brain drain mimics the issue of capital flight, which involves mass migration of
financial resources, brain-drain is sometimes known as "human capital flight." Emigrants
frequently take a fraction of the value of their training subsidised by the government or other
organisations with them; therefore brain drain is usually considered as an economic loss. It's
akin to capital flight, which refers to the same type of financial capital transfer. Brain drain is
frequently related with immigrants' de-skilling in their destination country, while their place
of emigration sees a loss of competent individuals. Brain drain can occur for a variety of
causes, including political instability in a country, a lack of opportunity, health problems,
personal issues, and so on.
According to the UNDP, emigration of computer specialists to the United States costs India
$2 billion per year. Indian students studying abroad for higher education costs India $10
billion per year in foreign exchange outflow. Thousands of Indian scientists, doctors,
engineers, and other professionals have migrated to other nations and are settling there.
Hundreds of our brightest minds attempt to flee India every year.
The Indian Diaspora is a geographically diverse group of people who live in over 110
countries. According to the Indian government, there are 30 million Indians living in the
Diaspora around the world. The nature of Indian Diaspora settlement can be split into two
categories: "old Diaspora" and "new Diaspora."
Indian workers, both semi-skilled and unskilled, are located primarily in the Gulf
Cooperation Council's high-income countries. For a long time, these migrants have also been
seen as important remittance senders. The existence of highly skilled flows towards the Gulf,
a location typically reserved for unskilled and semi-skilled Indians, demonstrates an
evolution of Indian labour migration. The same pattern can be seen in highly skilled
migration flows to the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe, where unskilled Indian
migrants mingle with more qualified groups. The paper also stated socio-economic aspects
like India being the brain reservoir in the new knowledge-based economy of our country,
how Indian students are important for developed countries, etc. In 2010, India was the
world's second-largest emigration country, behind Mexico, with an estimated stock of 11.4
million emigrants. India is one of the countries that loses the most highly trained workers to
international markets in absolute terms.
Natalia Buga, Jean-Baptiste Meyer (2012)," Indian Human Resources Mobility: Brain
drain versus Brain gain" highlights highly skilled diasporas from India. The paper also
highlights the evolution of Indian Migration flows. Diversification of destinations for Indian
human capital, increase in the immigration of Indian migrants to the EU, multiplication of
European destination for Indian migrants, international trade effects has also been addressed
in the research study.
Dr. Babita Srivastava (2005),” Economic Impact of Brain Drain in Developed and
Developing Countries”, this research paper highlights that Brain drain can have good
consequences, such as talented, skilled people leaving their home nations to grow and
explore themselves, allowing migrants to spend time in different countries. But both the
economy of the country where the brain drain is occurring and the economies of the
countries to which educated workers emigrate suffer greater negative consequences as brain
drain robs emerging countries of their ability to progress.
"In 2000, a person with a university or graduate school education was six times more likely
than someone with only a high school education to move legally." Developing countries, on
the other hand, continue to face a slew of issues, including poverty, a lack of technological
developments, and less possibilities.
Another bad effect is that when countries lose its talented and skilled inhabitants, they
develop more slowly. Developed countries gain talent while emerging ones lose it, resulting
in an overflow of skilled employees attempting to enter the workforce and less available
employment. The United States remains the worldwide high-skill migration system's central
hub.
India is one of the most affected countries by brain drain. Indian Americans are among the
most educated people in the country; many of them, especially those who were born in India,
have attended college and most have at least a bachelor's degree. Despite its large
population, India ranks 163rd in the world in terms of per capita income, with US$1070.
Every year, India produces three million college graduates, which is an issue because there is
a shortage of educated workers. Indians are unable to find work suited for their degrees. As a
result, they must look elsewhere, resulting in the brain drain problem. In addition, Indians
frequently face a lack of quality of life, with many regions experiencing poverty and rolling
blackouts. The last but not the least developing countries must learn how to operate in the
"New Economy."
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