Migration and Brain Drain - Part I
Human trafficking and people smuggling are multi-billion dollar
industries. At least 50% of the 150 million immigrants the world
over are illegal aliens. There are 80 million migrant workers
found in virtually every country. They flee war, urban
terrorism, crippling poverty, corruption, authoritarianism,
nepotism, cronyism, and unemployment. Their main destinations
are the EU and the USA - but many end up in lesser countries in
Asia or Africa.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) published the
following figures in 1997:
Africa had 20 Million migrant workers, North America - 17
million, Central and South America - 12 million, Asia - 7
million, the Middle East - 9 million, and Europe - 30 million.
Immigrants make up 15% of staid Switzerland's population, 9% of
Germany's and Austria's, 7.5% of France's (though less than 4%
of multi-cultural Blairite Britain). There are more than 15
million people born in Latin America living in the States.
According to the American Census Bureau, foreign workers
comprise 13% of the workforce (up from 9% in 1990). A million
have left Russia for Israel. In this past century, the world has
experienced its most sweeping wave of both voluntary and forced
immigration - and it does not seem to have abated.
According to the United Nations Population Division, the EU
would need to import 1.6 million migrant workers annually to
maintain its current level of working age population. But it
would need almost 9 times as many to preserve a stable workers
to pensioners ratio.
The EU may cope with this shortage by simply increasing labour
force participation (74% in labour-short Netherlands, for
instance). Or it may coerce its unemployed (and women) into
low-paid and 3-d (dirty, dangerous, and difficult) jobs. Or it
may prolong working life by postponing retirement.
These are not politically palatable decisions. Yet, a wave of
xenophobia that hurtled lately across a startled Europe - from
Austria to Denmark - won't allow the EU to adopt the only other
solution: mass (though controlled and skill-selective) migration.
As a result, Europe has recently tightened its admission (and
asylum) policies even more than it has in the 1970's. It bolted
and shut its gates to primary (economic) migration. Only family
reunifications are permitted. Well over 80% of all immigrants to
Britain are women joining their husbands, or children joining
their father. Migrant workers are often discriminated against
and abused and many are expelled intermittently.
Still, economic migrants - lured by European riches - keep
pouring in illegally (about half a million every year -to
believe The Centre for Migration Policy Development in Vienna).
Europe is the target of twice as many illegal migrants as the
USA. Many of them (known as "labour tourists") shuttle across
borders seasonally, or commute between home and work - sometimes
daily. Hence the EU's apprehension at allowing free movement of
labour from the candidate countries and the "transition periods"
(really moratoria) it wishes to impose on them following their
long postponed accession.
According to the American Census Bureau's March 2002 "Current
Population Survey", 20% of all US residents are of "foreign
stock" (one quarter of them Mexican). They earn less than
native-born Americans and are less likely to have health
insurance. They are (on average) less educated (only 67% of
immigrants age 25 and older completed high school compared to
87% of native-born Americans). Their median income, at $36,000
is 10% lower and only 49% of them own a home (compared to 67% of
households headed by native-born Americans). The averages mask
huge disparities between Asians and Hispanics, though. Still,
these ostensibly dismal figures constitute a vast improvement
over comparable data in the country of origin.
But these are the distant echoes of past patterns of migration.
Traditional immigration is becoming gradually less attractive.
Immigrants who came to Canada between 1985-1998 earn only 66% of
the wages of their predecessors. Labour force participation of
immigrants fell to 68% (1996) from 86% (1981).
While most immigrants until the 1980's were poor, uneducated,
and unskilled - the current lot is middle-class, reasonably
affluent, well educated, and highly skilled. This phenomenon -
the exodus of elites from all the developing and less developed
countries - is called "brain drain", or "brain hemorrhage" by
its detractors (and "brain exchange" or "brain mobility" by its
proponents). These metaphors conjure up images of the inevitable
outcomes of some mysterious processes, the market's invisible
hand plucking the choicest and teleporting them to more abundant
grounds.
Yet, this is far from being true. The developed countries, once
a source of such emigration themselves (more than 100,000
European scientists left for the USA in the wake of the Second
World War) - actively seek to become its destination by
selectively attracting only the skilled and educated citizens of
developing countries. They offer them higher salaries, a legal
status (however contingent), and tempting attendant perks. The
countries of origin cannot compete, able to offer only $50 a
month salaries, crumbling universities, shortages of books and
lab equipment, and an intellectual wasteland.
The European Commission had this to say last month:
"The Commission proposes, therefore, that the Union recognize
the realities of the situation of today: that on the one hand
migratory pressures will continue and that on the other hand in
a context of economic growth and a declining and aging
population, Europe needs immigrants. In this context our
objective is not the quantitative increase in migratory flows
but better management in qualitative terms so as to realize more
fully the potential of immigrants' admitted."
And the EU's Social and Employment Commission added, as it
forecast a deficit of 1.7 million workers in Information and
Communications Technologies throughout the Union:
"A declining EU workforce due to demographic changes suggests
that immigration of third country nationals would also help
satisfy some of the skill needs [in the EU]. Reforms of tax
benefit systems may be necessary to help people make up their
minds to move to a location where they can get a job...while
ensuring that the social objectives of welfare systems are not
undermined."
In Hong Kong, the "Admission of Talents Scheme" (1999) and "The
Admission of Mainland Professionals Scheme" (May 2001) allow
mainlanders to enter it for 12 month periods, if they:
"Possess outstanding qualifications, expertise or skills which
are needed but not readily available in Hong Kong. They must
have good academic qualifications, normally a doctorate degree
in the relevant field."
According the January 2002 issue of "Migration News", even now,
with unemployment running at almost 6%, the US H1-B visa program
allows 195,000 foreigners with academic degrees to enter the US
for up to 6 years and "upgrade" to immigrant status while in
residence. Many H1-B visas were cancelled due to the latest
economic slowdown - but the US provides other kinds of visas (E
type) to people who invest in its territory by, for instance,
opening a consultancy.
The UK has just implemented the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme
which allows "highly mobile people with the special talents that
are required in a modern economy" to enter the UK for a period
of one year (with indefinite renewal). Even xenophobic Japan
allowed in 222,000 qualified foreigners last year (double the
figure in 1994).
Germany has absorbed 10,000 computer programmers (mainly from
India and Eastern Europe) since July 2000. Ireland was planning
to import twenty times as many over 7 years - before the dotcoms
bombed. According to "The Economist", more than 10,000 teachers
have left Ecuador since 1998. More than half of all Ghanaian
medical doctors have emigrated (120 in 1998 alone). More than
60% of all Ethiopian students abroad never return. There are
64,000 university educated Nigerians in the USA alone. More than
43% of all Africans living in North America have acquired at
least a bachelor's degree.
Barry Chiswick and Timothy Hatton demonstrated ("International
Migration and the Integration of Labour Markets", published by
the NBER in its "Globalisation in Historical Perspective") that,
as the economies of poor countries improve, emigration increases
because people become sufficiently wealthy to finance the trip.
Poorer countries invest an average of $50,000 of their painfully
scarce resources in every university graduate - only to witness
most of them emigrate to richer places. The haves-not thus end
up subsidizing the haves by exporting their human capital, the
prospective members of their dwindling elites, and the taxes
they would have paid had they stayed put. The formation of a
middle class is often irreversibly hindered by an all-pervasive
brain drain.
(continued)