Labour Mobility and the Brain Drain

The movement of labour, and especially of educated labour, from poorer to richer countries has excited considerable public concern in many countries during the past decade, under the popular description of ‘brain drain’. Two types of such concern may be noted: concern in lower-income advanced countries such as Canada and the United Kingdom about the flow of native talent to the United States, and concern in various developing countries and in the United States about the flow of educated talent from the former to the latter, conceived in the United States as the problem of student non-return. The latter concern is the one relevant to this Conference, though it may be worth noting that the flows that occasioned the former concern appear to have been, at least in magnitude, a temporary phenomenon associated with university expansion, a build-up of scientific research endeavour and an expansion of demand for medical services in the United States, funds for the first two of which at least have been recently sharply cut back. Indeed some sections of public opinion in Canada are now concerned about the reverse ‘problem’ of an inflow of foreign (and especially American) academics attracted by the recent rapid expansion of the Canadian University system, while Britain has been besieged by inquiries for suitable employment from British scientists and engineers who have lost their jobs in the United States. This reversal should serve as a reminder both that flows of labour migration are a response to market forces, and that demand-supply situations can change fairly rapidly, and should not be incautiously identified as permanent structural economic features.