Brain Drain In Developing Countries

Regarding the stock of tertiary-educated emigrants, several interesting features emerge. First of all it was noticed that the number of tertiary-educated workers in the total stock of migrants exceed the share of tertiary-educated workers in the domestic labor force in every developing region of the world. In sub-Saharan Africa, the tertiary educated account for less than 3 percent of the labor force but more than 35 percent of all migrants (Ratha, Mohapatra, Ozden, Plaza and Shimeles, 2011).

Secondly, highly educated individuals are more likely to emigrate than less educated ones. For instance in 2005/2006, the emigration rates of tertiary-educated people (13.3%) exceed by far the total emigration rates (1%) in The Gambia (OECD, 2012).

Thirdly,

In his work entitled the brain drain and developing countries, Mundende (1977) underscored the magnitude of brain drain and the consequences it has on Africa. Research has shown that among migrants living in the US, the African migrants were relatively more educated when compared to their other migrants (McCabe, 2011; Carrington & Detragiache, 1999).

The concept of brain drain was coined in the late 1950s to describe the mass exodus of British professionals to the USA (Watanabe, 1969). It is a form of migration that refer to people leaving their home country to settle to host country either on temporal or permanent basis(Beine, Docquier, & Rapoport, 2008; Lututala, 2012; Ngoma & Ismail, 2013). Migrants are characterized by their gender, age, marital status or educational attainment. However, with regard to brain drain, the migrants involved are those that have attained a particular educational or professional

The first includes emigrants who have gained their education in their home country and migrated to developed countries. The second group is constituted by those who emigrated to and complete their education in Western countries but failed to return home at the end of their studies (Prah, 1989). The third category is composed of those emigrants who have the requisite professional qualification in their home country that qualify them to emigrate. In this study, brain drain refers to the emigration of skilled Africans to other countries, especially those who have a secondary education and have emigrated and completed tertiary education in the host