Brain Drain

1. Brain Drain Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences School of Medical Education Strategic Policy Sessions: 12

2. For every complex problem, there’s a simple, obvious answer that just happens to be wrong! H.L. Menken

3. Between 150,000-180,000 Iranians try to immigrate by various means annually

4. The latest figures released by the International Monetary Found (IMF) indicates that Iran ranks first in brain drain among 61 developing and less developed countries (LDC).

5. Our part in others development ! • 1.434 million people (12%) out of the 12 million people who have science and engineering degrees in the U.S.A., are of foreign origin. • Over 72% of these were originally born in a developing country. • 23% of those having a doctorate are not U.S.A. born citizens • This proportion in key areas such as engineering and computer sciences is 40% The SESTAT database of the National Science Foundation (NSF) 2005

6. Effect on mother land • For large countries like India and China, which dominate in terms of absolute numbers, skilled migration does not amount to a significant share of their educated workforces. • Indeed, only 1.1 and 1.4 percent of India and China’s skilled labour forces respectively had moved to the USA in 1990, although additional evidence – suggests that these migrants come from the top end of the skill distribution. • In Ghana, for example, over a quarter of the educated labour force lived in OECD countries in 1990, the share rises to over 60 percent for the Gambia and approaches 80 percent for Jamaica.

8. Islamic Republic of Iran

9. Who are the expatriates? • Of 125 Iranian high school students who have won awards at International Science Olympiads over the past three years, 90 of them are now at US universities (2001 figures) • More than 150,000 Iranian surgeons and engineers now live in the United States

10. Demographical profile of the Iranian immigrant community in the United States • 84% speak fluent English. • 46% have a bachelors degree or higher • 43% are in professional and managerial positions • 35% in technical and administrative • 48% are dual income earners • 22% own their own businesses. • Median family income is $55,501 (substantially above the national average of $35,492) and per capita income is $18,040. • 92% have a mortgage.

13.               Brain Flow Expatriate Group Susceptible Group Stable Group

14.               Brain Flow Internal Factors

15. Disease vs. Symptom Migration of educated people is not the ‘disease’ It is the ‘symptom’

16. Comparative Study • UNESCO: http:www.uis.unesco.org/profiles/EN/GEN/countryProfile_en.aspx?code=3560 • www.irandoc.ac.ir

17. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Self- actualization Needs Esteem Needs Love, Affection and Belongingness Needs Safety Needs Physiological Needs.

18. Self- actualization Needs Esteem Needs Love, Affection and Belongingness Needs Safety Needs Physiological Needs. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs 50 meters of housing costs between 12,500,000 to more than 75,000,000 Toomans Marriage rate decreases and mean age of marriage increases significantly mainly due to financial problem There is intense demand for university places. The entrance exams are very competitive and Less than 15% of the approximately 1.5 million people who take the exams annually, actually begin studies. Unemployment, officially at 13 percent, is closer to 20 percent, according to independent economists. each year 270,000 university graduates enter the job market, whereas only 75,000 can be absorbed. Some 4,000 physicians, 14,000 midwives, and 17,000 nurses are unemployed, and hospitals are laying off personnel while 5,000 medical students graduate every year.

19. Self- actualization Needs Esteem Needs Love, Affection and Belongingness Needs Safety Needs Physiological Needs. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Perhaps more important, underemployment is the norm. The average engineer makes $150 to $250 a month, slightly less than the monthly income of a taxi driver and 10 times less than what he might have made some 20 years ago. Independent economists estimate that Iran needs to create close to 1 million jobs a year to keep up with its youthful population. In order for Iran to meet its high demand for jobs, up to $10 billion a year of productive investment will be required," 100,000-400,000 job per $1,000,000,000 Over 70 percent of the industrial companies is state-owned and small industries make up 92.6 percent of the total industrial sector Only 1.4 percent of employment creators posses the necessary credentials to manage an industrial unit.

20. Important variables for brain drain in Iran

21.               Brain Flow External Factors

22. The United States • 22% of the worlds R&D workforce, • 40% of the worlds GERD (Gross Expenditure in R&D) and mainstream science production • 30-50% of the patents of technological innovation, in the world O.S.T. 1996 p341, UNESCO 1998, pp23-25

23. Intellectual Pool (%) Intellectual Capacity IQ IQ Brain Drain Reproduction Normal Distribution of IQ Iso-intellectual Marriage Generational Transmission of Intellectual Capacity Skewness to Right More Reproduction at Lower IQ Range More Brain Drain at upper IQ range Intellectual Dilution Frequency IQ

24. Effect on unskilled employment • There is an optimal balance between the number of • skilled labor workforce • unskilled labor workforce • Brain Drain also leads to unskilled unemployment

25.               Brain Flow

26.            “Block” Option  Failed to Bring Feasible or Effective Solutions (Meyer et al. 1997). Main Policy before 1980s was to Prevent or Regulate Brain Drain

27.               “Compensate” Option • Compensate for: • Higher Education Costs • Elementary and Middle Education Costs • Social Subsides Cancel the Negative Effects of Brain Drain through Taxation. $

28. “Compensate” Option • Theoretical Assumptions on which these Policies were Based are Wrong • They basically referred to human capital approaches where the skilled person is conceived as an individual capital asset, made of all his/her qualifications and professional experience resulting of prior investments (Gary Becker). • The human capital approach reflects but a small part of the phenomenon.

29.              “Return” Option • The “More” Option: • More Money • More Respect • More Opportunity Unchanged Susceptible Pool

30. “Return” Option • The Republic of Korea has focused on encouraging skilled emigrants to return, rather than invest at home. • Intensive recruiting programs search out older professionals and scholars and offer them salaries competitive with overseas incomes, better working conditions, and help with housing and children’s schooling.

31. “Return” Option • Visiting professor programs allow the Republic of Korea to tap the expertise of those uncertain about returning home for good. • These initiatives, backed by the country’s improved economy, have produced strong results. • In the 1960’s, just 16 percent of Korean scientists and engineers with doctorates from the United States returned to Korea. In the 1980’s, that share jumped to about 70 percent.

33.               “Scientific Diaspora” Option Brain Gain Concept the expatriate skilled population may be considered as a potential asset

34. The Scientific Diaspora Option • It takes for granted that many of the expatriates are not likely to return. They have often settled abroad and built their professional as well as their personal life there. • However, they may still be very concerned with the development of their country of origin, because of religious, cultural, family or other ties. • The objective, then, is to create the links through which they could effectively and productively be connected to its development, without any physical temporary or permanent return.

35. The Scientific Diaspora Option • This type of distant cooperative work is now possible as cases of international research projects or multinational corporations’ (MNC). • Relationships between expatriate intellectuals and their mother country have often existed in the past. • What is new today, is that these sporadic, exceptional and limitedlinks may now become systematic, dense and multiple.

36. The Scientific Diaspora Option • Student/Scholarly Networks, • Local Associations of Skilled Expatriates, • Expert pool assistance through the Transfer of Knowledge Through Expatriate Nationals (TOKTEN) program of the UNDP • Intellectual/Scientific Diaspora Networks. • Developing • Established and organized

37. Networked Activities • Conferences • Seminars • Workshops • Focus group discussions • Social events such as dinners, new year • Newsletter or news groups • Joint developmental projects

38.               “Absorb-Prevent” Option

39.            “Absorb-Prevent” Option  • Investment on: • Education • R&D • Infrastructures • Involve them in: • Sustainable Development Process Develop a Shared Vision

40. “Absorb-Prevent” Option • This option has been successfully realized in various new industrialized countries (NICs) such as Singapore and the Republic of Korea or big developing countries such as India and China (Charum, Meyer, 1999). • Strong programs to repatriate many of their skilled nationals abroad have been put in place since 1980. • They have created at home the networks in which these returnees could effectively find a place and be operational.

41. “Absorb-Prevent” Option • These countries are the ones that significantly invest in S&T material as well as human infrastructure. • They had started to build the research and technico-industrial web which could appropriately sustain such R&D activities employing S&E. • Obviously the success of that option depends very much on this specific capacity. Such a prerequisite is not easily matched by many developing countries.

42. Thank You ! Any Question ?