Economic Development
(Michael Todaro)
The developing countries with limited human capital base will be unable to implement their development goals despite their abundant natural resources and huge flow of capital. The international migration of their few but highly qualified skilled manpower has made it difficult these countries efforts to improve their economic situations. In recent decades the poorest continent in the world, Africa, has lost as much as one third of its highly skilled personnel in recent decades. It has lost especially scientists, engineers, doctors and top administrative and managerial personnel. The factors most notably raised in this regard are inherent in the developing countries itself. These are political instability, underutilization of the already qualified manpower, lack of freedom and lack of satisfactory working conditions and the relatively low salaries paid to the skilled workers. The Western world that benefits much from the migration of skilled labor from developing countries is also equally responsible for this brain drain. The factor commonly referred in this regard is the transfer of First World values, attitudes, institutions and standards of behavior to Third World nations. Significant in this regard is the influence of rich-country social and economic standards on developing country salary scales, elite life-styles and general attitudes toward the private accumulation of wealth. The available higher educational opportunities in the developing countries play its own role in the growing problem of the international migration of high-level educated workers from poor to rich countries. Brain drain has adverse effects on the developing countries as it retards economic development, leads to the postponement of structural changes and in general widens the disparities between poor and rich nations. Tthe costs of brain drain are far higher than the benefits and developing countries, among others, have to create conducive political environment, respect human rights and adequate financial compensation to reverse the unfavorable consequences of migration of skilled workers.
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