Traditional exporters of migrants have become importers, turning the old paradigm on its head. The recent "brain gain" has presented new opportunities – and challenges – for Brazil, China and others.
Launched October 16, 2012
The routes of migration from the developing to the developed world have been so constant and predictable that the Nigerian cab driver who was educated as a doctor back home is just as much a fixture of New York City’s landscape as a fledgling Broadway actress or Wall Street banker. Academics and college-educated engineers from Brazil to China to Poland have long populated the world’s wealthier nations, seeking better opportunities, sometimes in their own fields, often behind steering wheels or in restaurant kitchens.
The richer nations have always drawn the world across its borders. According to the United Nations Population Division, 75 percent of international migrants move to a more developed country. For the exporters of migrants, especially of the skilled, the brain drain has been debilitating.
Now a global back-track is underway.
The financial crisis that began in 2008 sparked uncomfortable questions about middle class America’s sense of stability and the staying power of Europe’s social welfare. But it also revealed a new economic order in which opportunity is no longer the exclusive domain of the richest countries. Emerging economies not only fared better than most of the developed world, they continue to grow, drawing back their expatriates and, in some cases, even attracting new highly skilled citizens of the U.S. and Europe to their borders.
It is what Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the nonprofit Migration Policy Institute in Washington, calls the “democratization of talent.”
Grantee
Sara Miller Llana has been based in Mexico City for The Christian Science Monitor since 2006. As the paper's Latin America Bureau Chief, she has reported from over a dozen countries in the...
Grantee
Peter Ford began his reporting career in Central America in 1985, covering civil wars and their political and economic impact in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala for the Financial Times...
Grantee
Robert Marquand started reporting as an intern for the Washington bureau of the Albuquerque Journal in 1979-80, writing on New Mexico issues including the farmer "sit-in" on the Mall.
In...
Subjects
A family’s reverse migration transforms a Polish mountain spa resort as well as the attitudes of local residents.
One of the clearest illustrations of “brain gain” in Poland comes from the southern city of Krakow, which is experiencing a mini-boom in information technology.
Pulitzer Center Senior Editor Tom Hundley highlights this week's reporting on China's influence along the Mekong and in the soft power it exercises in countries such as Burma.
A New York Times front-page article this week discussed record numbers of people leaving China; our Brain Gain series talks about record numbers of people coming back. What's the story?
Pollution of Lake Tai in Wuxi city puts off potential traders and investors.
China is trying to tempt foreign-educated Chinese entrepreneurs and scientists to return home. The biggest obstacle? China's deep fear of failure.
The tide of brain drain – from developing countries to industrialized nations – has turned. Human capital is now returning home to Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Africa.
Chinese who found it hard to fit in at the water cooler abroad feel newly valued at home as China creates a reverse brain drain by using financial incentives to lure native talent back home.
In the global reverse brain drain, Poles returning home influence their sometimes frumpy, provincial homeland in everything from toilets to insurance coverage and workplace attitudes.
Reverse brain drain means twofold "brain gain" for Brazil as the global recession pulls native Brazilians home and, with them, a wave of European migrants leaving their austerity stricken homelands.
The tide of brain drain – from developing countries to industrialized nations – has turned. Human capital is now returning home to Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Africa.
Reverse brain drain means twofold "brain gain" for Brazil as the global recession pulls native Brazilians home and, with them, a wave of European migrants leaving their austerity stricken homelands.
A family’s reverse migration transforms a Polish mountain spa resort as well as the attitudes of local residents.
One of the clearest illustrations of “brain gain” in Poland comes from the southern city of Krakow, which is experiencing a mini-boom in information technology.
Pulitzer Center Senior Editor Tom Hundley highlights this week's reporting on China's influence along the Mekong and in the soft power it exercises in countries such as Burma.
A New York Times front-page article this week discussed record numbers of people leaving China; our Brain Gain series talks about record numbers of people coming back. What's the story?
Pollution of Lake Tai in Wuxi city puts off potential traders and investors.
China is trying to tempt foreign-educated Chinese entrepreneurs and scientists to return home. The biggest obstacle? China's deep fear of failure.
The tide of brain drain – from developing countries to industrialized nations – has turned. Human capital is now returning home to Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Africa.
Chinese who found it hard to fit in at the water cooler abroad feel newly valued at home as China creates a reverse brain drain by using financial incentives to lure native talent back home.
In the global reverse brain drain, Poles returning home influence their sometimes frumpy, provincial homeland in everything from toilets to insurance coverage and workplace attitudes.
Reverse brain drain means twofold "brain gain" for Brazil as the global recession pulls native Brazilians home and, with them, a wave of European migrants leaving their austerity stricken homelands.