Skilled worker migration and the development debate

Globalisation is the stepping stone for plenty of articles, essays and papers on social transformation, as it is for this one. Of the many questions raised by globalisation, one that has attracted much attention lately, is how this so-called globalisation affects the national and international mobility of workers and how this impacts upon development. More and more skilled and highly skilled workers are moving abroad for jobs. Rich countries have been opening their doors to developing country professionals. Is this a loss for the relatively less developed countries, or on the contrary, do they benefit from the presence of their professionals in the technologically more advances societies? Many poor countries development efforts seem to be continuously undermined by the phenomenon of human capital flight, currently referred to as ‘brain drain’. It is not a new phenomenon. Developing countries lose thousands of skilled people each year – engineers, doctors, scientist, technicians. This can be read in the 1992 UNDP report. This report, published 15 years ago, looked into the causes of the brain drain – describing how it is a process that is already existing for decades- , describes the often devastating effects of the mobility of the highly skilled, and suggests some measures.