Source: EURLEX
Language: en
Format: md

BRAIN DRAIN AND CHALLENGES ASSOCIATED WITH POPULATION DECLINE

Factual summary report of the online public consultation

Disclaimer: this document should be regarded solely as a summary of the contributions made by stakeholders in the context of the public consultation. It cannot in any circumstances be regarded as the official position of the Commission.
  
Contributions received represent the views of those that responded. Respondents to public consultations are self-selecting and are not a statistical sample of the EU population.

EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Directorate-General for Regional and urban policy (DG REGIO)

1.OBJECTIVES OF THE CONSULTATION

The public consultation aimed at collecting evidence from the ground on successful regional practices in tackling brain drain trends. The purpose of the consultation was also to get feedback on the scale, dynamics and localisation of the brain drain phenomenon. The outcome is expected to corroborate the Commission’s analysis on the most impacted regions, with a view to better target the potential Commission initiatives.

The consultation was carried out through a targeted questionnaire, addressing distinctively individuals, at one hand, and institutional stakeholders on the other hand. Open feedbacks were also received, often complementing the position papers sent alongside. The public consultation ran from 29 March 2022 until 21 June 2022 on the Commission’s “Have your say” portal.

2.QUESTIONNAIRE

2.1 INFORMATION ABOUT THE RESPONDENTS

A total of 64 respondents have contributed to the questionnaire online. Out of these responses, 39% (25 out of 64) were EU citizens, 25% (16 out of 64) public authorities, 13% (8 out of 64) from Non-Governmental Organisations, 11% (7 out of 64) from academia and research, and the rest of the respondents were from business association, trade union and 1 non-EU citizen from Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The country of origin declared by the respondents showed the large coverage of the survey throughout the EU, despite the relatively low number of total replies. Respondents declared coming from 17 Member States of the EU. No nationality was overrepresented in the replies, with 16% (10 out of 64) of Italian respondents, 13% (8 out of 64) of French ones, 9% (6 out 64) of Spanish and the rest was equally spread among Finland, Belgium, Germany, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Austria, Greece, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Sweden, Slovenia and the Netherlands.

Throughout the summary, the respondents will be referred to as individuals (26 respondents out of 64) or organisations (38 respondents out of 64). These two categories follow the structure of the questionnaire which automatically directed the respondents towards one set of questions or the other.

The size of the organisations that responded was mostly large (250 or more employees) for 48% of them and only 29% of micro organisations (1 to 9 employees). Very few organisations of small and medium size replied.

The place of living of respondents (combining both individuals and organisations) was, for 87% of valid answers (54 out of 62), located in urban areas.

2.2 REVIEW OF THE REPLIES TO THE QUESTIONNAIRE

The review of the replies will be split in three parts, corresponding to the questions posed: (1) on the importance of push and pull factors in interregional and international brain drain as perceived by both individuals and organisations, (2) if they agree on a list of statements regarding the attractiveness of their region or country and (3) on the policies to address brain drain and depopulation.

As stated in section 2.1, a distinction will be made between individual respondents and organisations. Indeed, the replies vary sometimes greatly which did not allow grouping them, even if questions were similar. The possibility to give feedback in open questions was also much more used by organisations.

·Push and pull factors

The type of question posed, and slightly changed for pull factors and for international brain drain, was:

The Commission has preliminarily identified some factors, which initiate and influence the decision to migrate by impelling or stimulating the decision to move to another country or region (“push” factors). How important do you perceive these as being in promoting brain drain from one region to another region within a country (interregional brain drain)?

To answer this, a series of pre-identified factors were listed and a gradient of replies given: from “very important” to “not important at all”, as shown below on Figure 1. Given the low number of replies, “very important” and “rather important” answers have been grouped together and “rather not important” and “not important at all” as well for the statistical analysis.

![](./../../../resource.html?uri=IMMC:Ares%282022%295684493.ENG.xhtml.Ares_282022_295684493_ENG_xhtml_01001.jpg)

Figure 1: Example of the layout of replies available to the respondents (a list of more than ten factors was listed below)

Push factors and interregional brain drain

The replies of the individual citizens were more concentrated on some push factors than the replies given by organisations. Indeed, 92% of citizens (24 out of 26) declared “the lack of employment, career or business opportunities in the region of origin” as an important push factor, whereas 63% (24 out of 38) of the organisations chose the same factor. Individuals also largely chose the second push factor (“lack of educational opportunities and/or investments in education and training in the region of origin”) with 88% of respondents (23 out of 26).

The respondents had the opportunity to add their own written opinion on which push factor was the most important and some organisations mentioned “skills shortages and salary gaps in the EU”. The “lack of housing” was also part of the open feedback from organisations and came back again in the open feedback from individual citizens in the pull factors’ section as well.

Push factors and international brain drain

The same push factor was the most favoured in the answers for international brain drain as for the previous question (“lack of employment, career or business opportunities in the region of origin”): 88% (23 out of 26) of citizens and 61% (23 out of 38) of organisations believed it was important. Interestingly, for both citizens and organisations, the factor “ageing population in the region of origin” ranked highest in the percentage of answers putting it as neutral or not important: for 65% (17 out of 26) of citizens and 47% (18 out of 38) of organisations. The open feedbacks from organisations also mentioned the issue of “immigration bureaucracy as a push factor of talents leaving the EU”.

Pull factors, interregional and international brain drain

Interregional and international brain drain pull factors’ results have been grouped together due to the very slight variation in the pattern of answers to both questions, coming from citizens and from organisations. Both category of respondents have put four factors higher up in terms of importance: “Better labour market conditions”; “better institutional environment and stability”; “better education, training and research institutions” and “better provision of health and social services”. Interestingly, the importance of “geographic proximity” and “linguistic/cultural similarities” has received the least votes: only 35% of citizens (9 out of 26) and only 24% (9 out of 38) of organisations thought it was important for interregional and international brain drain.

·Attractiveness of the regions of origin

For this section, hereunder was the question posed, with slight changes in the phrasing depending on whether it was related to the region or the country of origin:

![](./../../../resource.html?uri=IMMC:Ares%282022%295684493.ENG.xhtml.Ares_282022_295684493_ENG_xhtml_01002.jpg)

Figure 2: Example of the layout of replies available to the respondents, with a list of more than ten factors listed after

As in the previous group of questions, given the low number of replies, “strongly agree”, “agree” and “agree somewhat” as well as “disagree somewhat”, “disagree” and “strongly disagree” answers have been grouped together for the statistical analysis.

In this section, some respondents dropped from the questionnaire and did not continue further: one on the side of the citizens’ group and more for the organisations. Indeed, the number of effective answers has been continuously dropping along the different stages of the questionnaire. To account for this, the number of effective replies is always mentioned in bracket.

The statement to which respondents agreed the most was always “decision makers in my region/ country should be doing more to address brain drain” with 92% (23 out of 25) of citizens and 86% (30 out of 35) of organisations.

On some statements, results are more polarised however. For instance, to the statements “there are strong links between businesses, universities and training centres able to foster local economic development in my region”, and “university knowledge successfully spills over local firms and sectors in my region”, 36% (9 out of 25) of citizens disagreed. On some statements, there were even more citizens disagreeing than agreeing, such as for “my country’s labour market is attractive to nationals from other EU Member States” (48% - 12 out of 25 - agreeing against 36% - 9 out of 25 - disagreeing) and “my country supports entrepreneurship, and innovation in the labour market and industry” ( 52% - 13 out of 25 citizens - disagree).

Respondents were also asked, which sectors they thought was most affected by brain drain in their country/region. On that, the answers clearly showed the same two economic sectors on top of the votes for both citizens and organisations and at region and country levels: “human health and social work activities” and “professional, scientific and technical activities”.

·Policies to counter brain drain and depopulation

In the last section of the questionnaire, respondents were asked: are you aware of any policy measure/programme/strategy, either on at EU, national, regional or local level, implemented to address brain drain? In addition, if they answered positively, they could give more precise replies in an open question. Following this, they were given a list of examples to choose from and a gradient to answer.

![](./../../../resource.html?uri=IMMC:Ares%282022%295684493.ENG.xhtml.Ares_282022_295684493_ENG_xhtml_01003.jpg)

Figure 3: Example of the layout of replies available to the respondents with a list of more than ten policies listed

For the statistical analysis of this type of question, answers were grouped together into two categories of answer only: effective and ineffective. In this section, the total number of respondents decreased even more than in the previous questions.

Organisations showed a high level of knowledge on the measures taken at local/regional/national and EU level and cited for instance:

-the creation of the Carinthian Welcome Center as “First contact point for settling”

-the launch of a skilled labour portal by the federal state of Saxony as “First port of call for comers”

-a public policy for nursing and midwifery in Poland

-the organisation of rural internship for university students

-the EU strategy for outermost regions.

On the effectiveness of policies to retain, attract or re-attract competent individuals, answers differed between citizens and organisations. Citizens put, as top three most effective policies: “more job opportunities”, “business and entrepreneurship support” and “better provision of health and social services” with each 88% (22 out of 25) of votes. Organisations had first “education and skills support” as the most effective policy (95% (35 out of 37) of organisations) and second “more job opportunities” with 92% (34 out of 37) of replies.

On the other hand, some policies received a very low support in the respondents. For instance, citizens showed their lowest support to the “promotion of gender equality and inclusion” with only 52% (12 out of 23) of responses to this proposal. Organisations had the lowest share of replies for the effectiveness of “improved broadband and 5G internet access” with 54% (20 out of 37) of replies.

On the open feedback space given to respondents, citizens mentioned the need for future initiatives/ policies to “focus on sustainable future and ecology” as well as housing.

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