Migration, Brain Drain, Remittances

About 180 million people worldwide live outside their country of birth. International migration is both a cause and a consequence of an interconnected world. People can immigrate for many reasons, but it's usually to make a better life for themselves and their families.

Migrants, especially unskilled migrants with financial limitations, tend to move to countries close by. So, most immigrants to the United States and Canada come from Central America and the Caribbean, while most immigrants to the European Union are from the Middle East and Eastern Europe. This also makes it easier for immigrants to stay in close touch with families back home.

Brain Drain

Educated and non-educated people alike immigrate abroad in search of opportunities and a better life.

But when educated professionals leave their home countries in droves, this mass migration can create serious consequences for the countries they're leaving behind. The reason is that because without an educated workforce, it's difficult for a poor country to develop and prosper.

This phenomena even has a name: "brain drain."

Brain drain is massive in small and poor developing countries, according to a new World Bank report "International Migration, Remittances and the Brain Drain."

• More than half of college graduates from Central America and the Caribbean live abroad.
• In Haiti and Jamaica, for example, 8 out of 10 college graduates live outside their country.
• In Sub-Saharan Africa skilled workers make up only 4% of the total workforce. But more than 40% of them immigrate to wealthier countries.

Brain drain is less of a problem for large countries. Because their populations are large, even if many skilled people leave, many will remain behind (simply because of the shear number of people).

In China and India, for example, only 3 to 5% of college graduates live abroad. The numbers are similar for Brazil, Indonesia, and the former Soviet Union.

Understanding the so-called brain drain is becoming very important for development research.

Researchers are also trying to find out what kind of jobs these immigrants land in the countries to which they immigrated. Are their skills are being put to good use?

The International Migration, Remittances and the Brain Drain report finds that skilled migrants to the United States often don't find jobs that match their education levels. Immigrants from Latin America and Eastern Europe with similar education levels are more likely to end up in unskilled jobs in the United States than immigrants from Asia, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa.

But those who immigrate from India and the United Kingdom are more likely to get jobs that use their skills.

Language is one of the main reasons: University educated people from India and the United Kingdom speak English, which is a big advantage when they come to the U.S.

Remittances

Most immigrants send money back home to help family members who stayed behind.

Remittances (the money immigrants send back home) reached some $225 billion in 2005, according to estimates published in the Global Economic Prospects 2006, a World Bank report.

This extra money helps families back homebreak out of poverty. For example:

• The remittances Filipino households receive translate into less child labor, greater child schooling, more hours worked in self-employment, and a higher rate of people starting businesses which require a lot of start-up capital, according to a survey.
• In Guatemala remittances make up more than half of the income the poorest 10% of families earn. These families use the remitted money to educate their children, take better care of their health and improve their houses, rather than spending it on food and other goods.

But the study found one exception: immigrants from rural Mexico. According to the studies in the report, 16 to 18 year-olds in households from which someone had migrated had lower levels of education compared to households where no one migrated abroad.

The study concludes this exception occurs because of the special situation of Mexico's rural migrants in the U.S. labor market: their low level of education only gets them unskilled jobs in the U.S., regardless of whether or not they spend an additional year in school. So people from rural Mexico planning to migrate to the U.S. have little incentive to invest in education.

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