The Double-Edged Sword of Skill Underutilization for Highly Educated Migrants in Sending and Receiving Nations

• In Event: International Migration Section Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 12. Highly skilled / white collar migration

Abstract

Based on an extensive and in-depth survey of literature, this paper reconceptualizes “brain drain” and repositions “brain waste” within a global economic system affected by neoliberal policies of the past three decades. “Brain drain” is defined as the permanent or long-term international emigration of skilled people who have been the subject of considerable educational investment by their own societies; while “brain waste” is a reference to skilled and educated migrants with legal status who either work in jobs below their skill levels and educational credentials, or are unable to find employment once they arrive at the host country. Most neoliberal and functionalist studies of brain drain consider the phenomenon not only as a positive migrant labor mobility that is beneficial to the host nations, but also posit that it also leads to “brain gain” at home by enhancing human capital through incentives such as investing in education, remittances, and return migration. Furthermore, using the neoliberal approach, studies of brain waste also often consider skill underutilization of educated migrants (brain waste) in receiving countries as an isolated experience that is unrelated to brain drain determinants back home which leads to their emigration. Using the historical-structural theoretical approach, the paper advances the argument that due to the dynamics of a global labor market mobility brain drain is manifestation of the first phase of brain waste in sending nations for the highly-educated individuals who emigrate. Thus, migrants are afflicted by brain waste twice, once in their home country prior to emigration and once upon their arrival in the host nation.

Author

• Homa Sadri, University of California-Irvine