Brain Circulation Vs Brain Drain
When skilled labor emigrates from a country, it can be argued that it represents a loss of intellectual capital and resource to the nation. Certainly when professionals like engineers, doctors and nurses emigrate en masse, it can pose a real problem to a nation as these professionals help in delivering many critical services to the people of the country. Commentators have labeled this process of emigration of skilled labor as Brain Drain and the process of immigration of skilled labor to foreign countries as Brain Gain, denoting the gain of intellectual capital of host nations receiving this skilled labor.
But some have lately realized that Brain Drain is only one part of the story. The other part of the story relates to the social contacts and international experience the expatriates gain when working or studying in a foreign country. These experiences and social contacts are valuable resources for the country of origin of these expatriates, provided it is able to tap into them, and such a process is called Brain Circulation.
The story has been mixed so far. In some cases like Taiwan, Greater China and India, countries have profited enormously from brain circulation, while in others, brain circulation does not seem to happen in a significant way. Why brain circulation can be witnessed in certain contexts and not in others is a question that is at the forefront of research questions that academics are at present grappling with in this area of study.
Read more about this topic: Brain Circulation
Famous quotes containing the words brain, circulation and/or drain:
“Why does man freeze to death trying to reach the North Pole? Why does man drive himself to suffer the steam and heat of the Amazon? Why does he stagger his mind with the mathematics of the sky? Once the question mark has arisen in the human brain the answer must be found, if it takes a hundred years. A thousand years.”
—Walter Reisch (1903–1963)
“The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists the circulation of their blood.”
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946)
“Why is it so difficult to see the lesbian—even when she is there, quite plainly, in front of us? In part because she has been “ghosted”Mor made to seem invisible—by culture itself.... Once the lesbian has been defined as ghostly—the better to drain her of any sensual or moral authority—she can then be exorcised.”
—Terry Castle, U.S. lesbian author. The Apparitional Lesbian, ch. 1 (1993)