Issues in high-skilled international migration.

AuthorRegets, Mark C.
PositionReport

Abstract

Highly-skilled migrants are becoming a more important part of the world economy and of policy debates in a diverse set of countries. The proliferation of skills around the world, increases in world trade, the growth of R&D, and the general increase in the labor market demand for diverse sets of skills, have all contributed to the emergence of high-skilled migration as a major factor in the economies of most countries. High-skilled migration is often discussed in narrow terms of "brain drain/brain gain", when both the pattern of migration and its effects appear to be much more complex. However, our understanding of the effects of high skilled migration is much less than for international migration in general, and is based upon much less research and data. This paper reviews the possible effects of high skilled international migration, and the major research and policy questions that need answering.

INTRODUCTION

Migration across national borders provokes many spirited political and policy debates. Although these debates are often most contentious when they deal with lower-skilled migrants, high-skilled migration also raises strong emotions. If nothing else, immigration changes the status quo. If lower-skilled migrants are sometimes said to take jobs that natives do not want, high-skilled migrants are employed in the types of jobs that many would prefer go to natives. At the same time, government in both less-developed and many developed countries worry about losing their more highly educated workers. As high-skilled migration appears to become more important to the world economy, it becomes all the more important to understand its likely effects. Unfortunately, these effects have not been well studied or measured and are likely to be more complex than acknowledged in most policy discussions.

This paper provides an overview of the major research and policy issues in the international migration of highly skilled individuals and their families. Knowledge and understanding of this migration's effects are limited not only by available data (as is the case in much immigration research), but also by unanswered questions in labor market theory and economic growth theory: How fungible are skills among those with specialized knowledge? Does presence in an economy of highly skilled workers affect investment and R&D decisions by firms (increasing demand over time for high-skilled workers)? Do more scientists lead to more knowledge? This paper does not answer these questions, but deals with how these and other questions affect our understanding of high-skilled migration.

As the world's largest economy, as the largest educator of foreign students, and as a traditional nation of immigration, the United States is an important nexus for the international movement of high-skilled workers. As such, this paper uses U.S. data on high-skilled migration to and from the United States to provide some insights into the magnitude and direction of the possible effects of high-skilled migration.

While this paper often focuses on economic and knowledge creation effects for individual countries and the global economy, it is also important to recognize that this should not be the only component of policy making on immigration policy. Freedom of movement is valued as a human right, and is recognized as such in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, albeit in a limited form. Aside from the maximization of human liberty, it seems likely that migrants themselves incur greater economic benefits and costs of high-skilled migration--theory would suggest that at least the expected value of individual net benefits is positive for those who choose to migrate, although these benefits and costs may also include substantial non-economic factors. On the other hand, countries may seek to limit immigration for cultural reasons, or prefer for humanitarian reasons to favor immigration of family members of previous migrants.

NATIONAL AND GLOBAL CONSEQUENCES OF HIGH-SKILLED MIGRATION

Table 1 outlines one attempt to lay out likely or possible economic effects of high-skilled international migration. In addition to the normal "brain drain" effects, any accounting needs to include possible positive effects for sending countries and negative effects for sending countries. Also neglected in the simple "brain drain" paradigm are global effects on the growth of technology and knowledge that cannot be easily assigned to individual polities.

The categories, "receiving" and "sending" are not meant be synonymous with "developed" and "less developed". Many developed countries, such as the United Kingdom, have expressed concerns about retaining their researchers, and many less-developed countries do attract foreign talent in areas where they are able to offer opportunities to study or use unique geological and biological natural resources. Indeed, many countries may be both net receivers and net senders in different skill areas.

Few of the possible effects discussed in this paper are well established empirically, although some "indicator" data do exist. Thus, this represents for research agenda.

Negative Effects for Sending Countries

A loss of productive capacity due to the, at least temporary, loss of highly skilled workers and students is the most discussed negative effect of migration on sending countries. This "brain drain" has been an issue not just for countries, but for any area whose educated natives migrate--in the United States, rural states often worry about the products of their state universities moving to other parts of the United States where their skills are in greater demand. In addition to the direct effect on the availability of high-skilled labor, another consequence of highly educated workers leaving a country may be a reduction in political support for funding for higher education.

College educated migrants to the United States do have a significant proportion of their formal education from outside the United States. As shown in Table 2, about 55% of the college-educated foreign-born in 1993 had at least one post-secondary degree from an institution outside the United States, and 40% had their highest degree (or most recent if at the same degree level) from a foreign institution. Even at the highest education level, nearly one-third of the foreign-born with doctorates who were resident in the United States received their doctorates from foreign institutions. Although many immigrants to the United States arrive as children, 71% of the college-educated foreign-born graduated from a foreign secondary school, with their pre-university education funded outside the United States.

Many countries are concerned with the return rates of their nationals who go to other countries for graduate training. Finn (1999) shows that slightly over half (53%) of 1992-93 recipients of science and engineering doctorates from US schools were working in the United States in 1997.

Positive Effects for Sending Countries

Less often discussed are the positive effects that may exist for countries whose highly skilled natives and citizens move across borders. In part, this is because of measurement difficulties. Although data on international migration is often poor, counts of initial migrations of people are easier to obtain than data on return migration or return knowledge flows. Nevertheless, there are several indicators that such benefits might exist. While there is talk of "brain drain," others have talked of "brain gain" or "brain circulation" to describe these complex effects.

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