When looking at some of the world’s most prominent CEOs, one is immediately struck by the growing number of immigrants on that list. From the CEO of Google to the CEO of Instacart, these individuals have worked tirelessly to improve their families lives, reaching heights never imagined before. Why is this number rapidly rising? The primary reason for this surge is brain drain, where highly educated people leave their home country in search of better opportunities elsewhere. These locations are typically in first world countries that offer professional benefits. Observing these individuals from different countries inspires us to work better and strive to be the best version of ourselves, yet their hometowns often do not share these positive sentiments.
People come to Canada for various reasons, and when we observe brain drain, we can assume they came here for a better life, a chance so significant it has the potential to change their lives. From developing countries, many of the highly educated will leave to pursue the American dream. While these individuals contribute to the prosperity of first-world countries, their departure can have disastrous impacts on the developing countries they leave behind. One significant reason hometowns resent the departure of the educated is that they lose the chance to escape poverty. If all the individuals who could make a difference leave, these countries may remain stuck as developing nations. The resources used to educate these people are nearly wasted for countries that are already economically thriving.
Poverty becomes a cycle: if successful people don’t develop companies in their countries, they won’t be able to provide jobs for the common folk. The inability of the lower class to find stable jobs hinders positive economic growth, leading individuals to jobs such as street vending, agriculture, or involvement in family businesses. Brain drain perpetuates a cycle that, as always, leaves developing countries with limited resources. Despite these negative effects of brain drain, there are still some positive aspects of brain drain for the countries of origin.
When people immigrate to other countries, they are often the fortunate ones in their families, the ones who got a chance out of thousands of others. Many family members back home send their children to work and then expect them to send money back to improve the family’s financial situation. Many people are now able to send money abroad to Canada’s list of eligible countries for money transfers. This positive change arising from brain drain encourages education within families and can elevate the financial statuses of individual families.
Brain drain is an escalating issue for developing countries, ad while there may be limited actions we can take from here, we can use this information to understand its implications on economic stimulation and various other statistical declines wnithin developing countries.