Brain Drain or Brain Circulation? What Happens When Graduates Leave

Trends & data · By the Open Quad editorial team · Published 2026-10-08

Students and passers-by crossing a footbridge over a canal on a city university campus — Students on a footbridge at the Roeterseiland campus, Amsterdam, 2013. Photo: Fons Heijnsbroek, Wikimedia Commons, CC0.

When a doctor trained at public expense in a low-income country takes a job abroad, her country loses a scarce skill and the cost of her education. But she may also send money home, collaborate with colleagues there or return with new expertise. The debate over "brain drain" has shifted over sixty years from simple loss to a more complex picture of circulation. This article sets out the main ideas and evidence.

Where the idea came from

The phrase "brain drain" entered public debate in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s, when the Royal Society reported on the emigration of British scientists, mainly to the United States. It was soon applied to developing countries, where the departure of doctors, engineers and academics after independence was seen as a serious loss. In the 1970s, some economists proposed taxing emigrants to compensate their home countries; the idea was debated but never widely adopted.

Why graduates leave

Research on skilled migration consistently points to the same mix of factors: much higher salaries abroad, better equipment and research funding, career prospects, political instability or insecurity at home, and the networks created when people study abroad. International students are a particular case: many host countries offer post-study work routes (see working while studying), and a share of graduates stay. The policies of host countries, which have alternately encouraged and restricted student migration, therefore shape the flows as much as conditions at home (see international student numbers).

The costs

The losses are clearest in health. The World Health Organization has documented severe shortages of health workers in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere, while richer countries recruit internationally to fill their own gaps. Losing trained staff also weakens universities themselves, since they lose the lecturers and researchers who would train the next generation, and public investment in their education is not recovered through taxes.

The gains: from drain to circulation

Channel	How it can benefit the home country
Remittances	Money sent home by migrants, which the World Bank counts in the hundreds of billions of dollars a year to low- and middle-income countries
Diaspora networks	Links for trade, investment, research collaboration and mentoring
Return migration	Returnees bring skills, savings and contacts; some found firms or lead institutions
"Brain gain"	The prospect of working abroad may lead more people to invest in education, and not all of them leave

Economists debate the size of each effect, which varies widely by country and profession. A small country that loses a large share of its doctors is in a very different position from a large country with many graduates and an active diaspora. The phrase "brain circulation" captures the idea that talent moves back and forth, especially when travel, communication and joint work are easy.

Policy responses

Ethical recruitment. The WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel, adopted by the World Health Assembly in 2010 (resolution WHA63.16), asks countries not to actively recruit health workers from countries facing critical shortages. WHO maintains a list of countries with the most pressing shortages, to which recruitment safeguards apply.
Diaspora programmes. Schemes such as the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program, run by the Institute of International Education, fund diaspora academics to spend time at universities in their countries of origin, teaching, supervising and collaborating.
Training at home. Sandwich and co-supervised doctorates, which keep students registered at home, and regional centres of excellence aim to build capacity without permanent emigration (see research collaboration across borders).
Return incentives. Some governments and scholarship schemes require or reward return, for example through bonding conditions or reintegration grants; others try to improve salaries and research conditions.

What universities and partnerships can do

University partnerships have often been criticised for training staff abroad who then do not return. Approaches that tend to work better include training partly or fully at the home institution, providing research funding and equipment for returnees, building long-term collaborations so that researchers can stay internationally active from home, and involving diaspora academics in teaching and supervision. These measures do not stop people from leaving, which is their right, but they make it more likely that their skills keep benefiting their home institutions.

Questions to ask about any programme

Where will trainees be based during and after their training?
What research support exists for them when they return?
How are diaspora members involved?
Does the programme track where its graduates go?

Where the data come from

Measuring skilled emigration is difficult because sending countries rarely track who leaves. Most estimates use census and survey data from destination countries, compiled in sources such as the OECD's Database on Immigrants in OECD Countries (DIOC), which records migrants by country of birth and level of education. These data show emigration rates of the tertiary-educated, the share of a country's graduates living abroad, which tend to be highest in small states and some low-income countries.

Sources

World Health Organization, health workforce, including the Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel (2010).
World Bank, migration and remittances.
OECD, international migration.
Institute of International Education, Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program.
International Organization for Migration: iom.int.