metadata: authors: 0: author: Adams, Richard H. Jr.
count: Mexico,Jamaica,Guatemala,Dominican Republic,El Salvador
docna: 0: docna: International migration, remittances, and
            the brain drain ; a study of 24 labor exporting countries
docty: Policy Research Working Paper
subtopic: Human Migrations & Resettlements,Tertiary Education,Educational Sciences,International Migration,Inequality,Migration and Development
teratopic: Health, Nutrition and Population
abstracts: cdata!: While the level of international
            migration and remittances continues to grow, data on
            international migration remains unreliable. At the
            international level, there is no consistent set of
            statistics on the number or skill characteristics of
            international migrants. At the national level, most
            labor-exporting countries do not collect data on their
            migrants. Adams tries to overcome these problems by
            constructing a new data set of 24 large, labor-exporting
            countries and using estimates of migration and educational
            attainment based on United States and OECD records. He uses
            these new data to address the key policy question: How
            pervasive is the brain drain from labor-exporting countries?
            Three basic findings emerge: With respect to legal
            migration, international migration involves the movement of
            the educated. The vast majority of migrants to both the
            United States and the OECD have a secondary (high school)
            education or higher. While migrants are well-educated,
            international migration does not tend to take a very high
            proportion of the best educated. For 22 of the 33 countries
            in which educational attainment data can be estimated, less
            than 10 percent of the best educated (tertiary-educated)
            population of labor-exporting countries has migrated. For a
            handful of labor-exporting countries, international
            migration does cause brain drain. For example, for the five
            Latin American countries (Dominican Republic, El Salvador,
            Guatemala, Jamaica and Mexico) located closest to the United
            States, migration takes a large share of the best educated.
            This finding suggests that more work needs to be done on the
            relationship between brain drain, geographical proximity to
            labor-receiving countries, and the size of the (educated)
            population of labor-exporting countries.
geo_reg_key: 119228,517206,545133,517191
repnme: repnme: International migration, remittances, and
            the brain drain ; a study of 24 labor exporting countries
display_title: International migration,
            remittances, and the brain drain ; a study of 24 labor
            exporting countries
listing_relative_url: /research/2003/06/2390972/international-migration-remittances-brain-drain-study-24-labor-exporting-countries
topicv3: Tertiary Education m1326349 482,Poverty m1326687 695,Education m1327048 470,Immigration m1504162 2837,Human Capital Flight m1504170 2845
publishtoextweb_dt: 2010-07-01T00:00:00Z
historic_topic: Health, Nutrition and Population
origu: Poverty Reduction and Equity (PRMPR)
no_of_pages: 36
model_extractions: | POLICY **RESEARCH WORKING PAPER** 3069

# **Abstract**

While the level of international migration and remittances continues to grow, data on international migration remains unreliable. At the international level, there is no consistent set of statistics on the number or skill characteristics of international migrants. At the national level, most labor-exporting countries do not collect data on their migrants.

Adams tries to overcome these problems by constructing a new data set of 24 large, labor-exporting countries and using estimates of migration and educational attainment based on United States and OECD records. He uses these new data to address the key policy question: How pervasive is the brain drain from labor-exporting countries?

Three basic findings emerge:

* With respect to _legal_ migration, international migration involves the movement of the educated. The vast majority of migrants to both the United States and

the OECD have a secondary (high school) education or higher.

* While migrants are well-educated, international migration does _not_ tend to take a very high proportion of the best educated. For 22 of the 33 countries in<sup>which</sup> educational attainment data can be estimated, less than 10 percent of the best educated (tertiary-educated) population of labor-exporting countries has migrated.

* For a handful of labor-exporting countries, international migration _does_ cause brain drain. For example, for the five Latin American countries (Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica and Mexico) located closest to the United States, migration takes a large share of the best educated. This finding suggests that more work needs to be done on the relationship between brain drain, geographical proximity to labor-receiving countries, and the size of the (educated) population of labor-exporting countries.

This paper-a product of the Poverty Reduction Group,<sup>PovertyReduction and EconomicManagement Network-is part</sup> of a larger effort in the network to better understand how<sup>internationalmigrationand remittancesaffectdeveloping</sup> countries. Copies of the paper are available free from the<sup>World Bank,1818H Street NW, Washington,DC 20433.Please</sup> contact Nelly Obias, room MC4-834, telephone 202-473-1986,<sup>fax</sup> 202-522-3283,<sup>email address nobias@worldbank.org.</sup> Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web<sup>at http://econ.worldbank.org.The authormay becontacted</sup> at radams@worldbank.org. June 2003. (29 pages)

**_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings_** _of_ **_work_**<sup>**_inprogresstoencouragetheexcbangeof ideasabout_**</sup> **_development issues. An objective of the series is to get the_** _findings out quickly,_<sup>**_evenif the presentations are less than fully polished. The_**</sup> _papers cany the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings,_<sup>_interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this_</sup> _paper are entirely those of the authors. They do_ **_not_** _necessarily represent_<sup>_the view of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the_</sup> **_countries they represent._**

Produced by Partnerships, Capacity Building, and Outreach
International Migration, Remittances and<sup>the Brain Drain:</sup> A Study of 24 Labor-Exporting Countries* Richard H. Adams, Jr. PRMPR World Bank 1818 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20433 Phone: 202-473-9037 E-Mail: radams(aworldbank.org

*I would like to thank Maureen Lewis and<sup>Zafiris Tzannatosfor useful commentson an</sup> earlier draft.
Within the last decade an increasing amount of attention has focused on the relationship between international migration, brain drain, and economic growth. Since education has often been cited as a major determinant of long-term economic growth, conventional wisdom has typically argued that the international migration of people endowed with a high level of human capital - the so-called "brain drain" - is detrimental for the country of emigration.' According to this argument, the large-scale departure of highly-educated workers from developing countries tends to depress income levels and long-run economic growth rates in the developing world.

This conventional view, however, has recently been challenged by the following argument. In a developing economy with a limited growth potential, the return to human capital is likely to be low. This in turn would lead to limited incentive to acquire education, which is seen as the engine of economic growth. However, since the world at large values education, allowing migration of the "best and brightest" from a developing country may actually increase the incentive to acquire education. Since only a small faction of educated people in a specific country would migrate, this would encourage the average level of education of the remaining population to rise.

Deciding which of these arguments is most accurate is difficult, given the paucity of available information on the level and characteristics of international migration. For example, at the international level, there is no consistent or reliable system of data on either the number or skill characteristics of international migrants. Moreover, at the

> ' By "brain drain" this study does not mean the migration of engineers, physicians or other very highly skilled professions, but simply, the migration of more than 10 percent of the tertiary-educated population of a particular labor-exporting country.
2 national level, labor-exporting countries do not typically keep track either of the number or the skill characteristics of migrants. And while some labor-receiving countries do keep track these issues, they often use different definitions of immigration. As a result of these data problems, a host of key policy questions remain unanswered. Exactly how pervasive is the brain drain? Which countries or regions of the developing world are most affected? Does international migration deprive labor-exporting countries of a sizeable fraction of their "best and brightest," or are their numbers too small to worry about?

This paper proposes to answer these, and similar questions, by developing a new data set composed of 24 large, labor-exporting countries.<sup>2</sup> This data set includes all those developing countries which received more than $500 million dollars in official worker remittances in the year 2000.3 To ensure representativeness, the data set includes countries drawn from each major region of the developing world: Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, Europe and Central Asia, East Asia, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

The paper uses this new data set to do the following three tasks. First, in order to provide some perspective on the importance of international migration, the paper shows how the level of worker remittances received by these 24 labor-exporting countries has increased over time. Second, using data collected by the two main labor-receiving

> 2 The 24 study countries include: Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Janaica, Mexico, Peru (Latin America and Caribbean); Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia (Middle East and North Africa); Albania, Armenia, Croatia, Turkey (Europe and Central Asia); China, PR, Indonesia, Philippines (East Asia); Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka (South Asia); and Nigeria and the Sudan (Sub-Saharan Africa).

> 3The source of all data on official worker remittances in this study is: International Monetary Fund, Balance of Payments Statistics Yearbook.
3 regions in the world (United States and OECD),<sup>4the paper providesestimates of the total</sup> level of migration from each of the<sup>24 study countries.Finally,the paper uses datafrom</sup> the 2000 U.S. Population Census and<sup>estimatesfrom the 2001OECD Continuous</sup> Reporting System on Migration to show<sup>the stock of migrants by educationallevel</sup> (primary, secondary and tertiary)<sup>5</sup> in<sup>the twomain labor-receiving regions. These data</sup> also show the fraction of the population<sup>in each educationalcategory in eachlabor-</sup> exporting country that has migrated<sup>to theUnited Statesor theOECD.6Thelatter</sup> estimates, which are quite rough and<sup>in need of further refinement,providesome sense of</sup> the magnitude of the brain drain from<sup>each of the 24 labor-exportingcountries.</sup> Results from the study show that international<sup>migrantsare well-educated:67</sup> percent of all immigrants to the United<sup>States and88 percent of those to theOECD have</sup> a secondary (high school) education<sup>or higher.While thesefiguresdo not includethe</sup> large numbers of illegal (and presumably<sup>less educated)internationalmigrants, it does</sup> appear that uneducated individuals<sup>havelimitedaccess to legalinternationalmigration.</sup> International migrants also tend to be<sup>much bettereducatedthat the rest of the population</sup> of their country of origin. However,<sup>in terms of actualbrain drain on theircountry of</sup> origin, international migration does<sup>not seem to takea very high proportion of the best</sup> educated (tertiary). For example, with<sup>respect to migration to the UnitedStates.for 14 of</sup>

> 4Unfortunately, no data are available on the level of migration to the third most important labor-receiving region in the world: the Arab Gulf The<sup>OECD includes 30 member countries:Australia, Austria,</sup> Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic,<sup>Denmark,Finland,France, Germany,Greece, Hungary, Iceland,</sup> Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg,<sup>Mexico,Netherlands, New Zealand,Norway, Poland, Portugal,</sup> Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden,<sup>Switzerland,Turkey, United Kingdom,and UnitedStates.</sup>

_5_ Primary education is defined as 0 to<sup>8yearsof schooling;secondary is 9to12years;andtertiary is13</sup> years and above.

> 6 For the OECD, estirates of the fraction of population in each educational category from each study country are taken from Carrington<sup>and Detragiache(1998).</sup>
4 the 20 countries for which data exist, international migration takes less than 10 percent of the population with a tertiary education. Migration to the OECD results in a slightly higher degree of braip drain, but even here international migration takes more than 10 percent of the tertiary-educated population from only 5 of 13 labor-exporting countries.

The balance of the paper is organized as follows. To provide perspective on the growing importance of international migration, Section II presents data on changes in the level of worker remittances received in the 24 countries over the last twenty years. Section III explains the methodology used for estimating the level of migration to the United States and the OECD. Section IV applies this methodology to estimate the extent of brain drain to the United States by analyzing migration rates and the educational composition of U.S. migrants. Estimates of the level of brain drain to the OECD are presented using similar methods in Section V. Section VI concludes.

# II. Official Remittances from International Migration

To gain a proper perspective on the importance of international migration, it is best to begin with the most visible product of international migration: remittances received. Not only are remittances critical to the foreign exchange position of many labor-exporting countries, but they are also vital to the consumption and investment behavior of migrant households themselves. Perhaps because of their importance to both labor-exporting countries and households, remittances tend to be the best measured and recorded aspect of the migration experience. For instance, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) keeps annual records of the amount of worker remittances received by each
_5_ labor-exporting country.<sup>7</sup> No other organization<sup>-national or intemational -collects and</sup> publishes annual records on any other part of<sup>the international migration process.</sup> It should, however, be noted that the IMF<sup>only reports data on official worker</sup> remittance flows, that is, remittance monies which<sup>are transmitted through official</sup> banking channels. Since a large (and unknown)<sup>proportion of remittance monies is</sup> transmitted through informal, unofficial channels,<sup>the level of remittances recorded by</sup> the IMF underestimates the actual flow of<sup>remittancemonies retuming to labor-exporting</sup> countries. For instance, a recent IMF study<sup>(El-Qorchi, Maimboand Wilson, 2002)</sup> estimated that informal transfers of remittance<sup>monies could amount to $10 billion per</sup> annum.<sup>8</sup> Despite these problems, Table 1 shows the<sup>level of official worker remittances</sup> received by each of the 24 study countries<sup>over the twenty-year period,1981to2000.</sup> Total official remittances - measured in real<sup>terms-for the 24 labor-exportingcountries</sup> now amount to over $36 billion per annum.<sup>Among thestudy countries,the threelargest</sup> recipients of official worker remittances<sup>in 2000 are:India ($7,994 billion),Mexico</sup> ($5,816 billion) and Turkey ($4,035 billion).<sup>Mexicois also one of the countries</sup> recording the largest percentage rate of increase<sup>in remittancesover the twenty-year</sup> period.

It is interesting to note that that each of the three<sup>largest remittance-receiversis</sup> sending migrants to a different labor-receiving<sup>region. Although data arescanty, India is</sup> 7The IMF records amnual flows in international<sup>remittancesin its publication, Balance of Payments</sup> Statistics Yearbook.

> 8 Focusing on the hawala system of informal transfer, this IMF study of 15 developing countries (2002: 64) estimated that about $35 billion per annum of<sup>remittancemonieswas transmitted throughinformal</sup> channels in the early 1980s, falling to $10<sup>billion per annum in more recentyears.The declinein the level</sup> of informal transfers was attributed to the<sup>disappearanceof theblack marketexchangepremiums inmany</sup> developing countries during the 1990s.
6 probably sending most of its migrants to the OECD and the Arab Gulf.<sup>Becauseof its</sup> proximity to the United States, Mexico is sending most of its migrants<sup>to its northern</sup> neighbor. Turkey, the third largest remittance-receiver, is sending most of<sup>its migrants</sup> to the OECD (especially Germany).

Table 2 provides another way of looking at the flow of official<sup>remittances.Here</sup> the data on worker remittances for the 24 countries are disaggregated by<sup>region of the</sup> world. Because of the importance of the United States as a labor-receiving<sup>region,Latin</sup> America and the Caribbean is the largest recipient of official remittances.<sup>This region of</sup> the world also recorded the highest percentage rate of increase<sup>in official worker</sup> remittances over the last twenty years.

For the 24 study countries as a whole, Table 2 reveals that official<sup>worker</sup> remittances have increased at a strong 3.86 percent per year in real<sup>terms. To put this</sup> figure into perspective, Table 3 compares the annual rate of growth in official remittances for the 24 study countries with that of gross domestic<sup>product (GDP)for</sup> various regions of the developing world. For the twenty-year<sup>period,official remittances</sup> grew at a faster annual rate than did GDP in 119 low and lower middle-income developing countries (3.86 versus 1.61 percent per year). In two of the<sup>six regionsof the</sup> developing world (Latin America and the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan<sup>Africa), official</sup> remittances also grew at a faster annual rate than did GDP.
7

# III. Methodology for Estimating Levels of Migration

Since few, if any, of the major labor-exporting countries<sup>keep accuraterecords on</sup> either the number or the educational characteristics of<sup>migrants,it is necessaryto estimate</sup> these variables by using data collected by the main labor-receiving<sup>countries.For the</sup> purposes of this paper, the main labor-receiving countries<sup>(regions) includetwo:United</sup> States and the OECD. The third large labor-receiving<sup>region -the ArabGulf- does not</sup> publish any data on the number or characteristics of migrants,<sup>andthus willnot be</sup> included in this study.

# lIIa. Estimating Migration to the United States

Following the pioneering methodology of Carrington and Detragiache<sup>(1998),9</sup> this study employs four steps to estimate migration rates<sup>and the educational attainment</sup> of migrants to the United States.

The first step is to use data from the newly released files of<sup>the 2000 U.S.</sup> Population Census on the "place of birth for the foreign-born<sup>population." Fortunately,</sup> these data are disaggregated by country of birth for about<sup>50 specificcountries.</sup> However, it is not clear whether all of the "foreign-bom"<sup>populationare, infact migrants.</sup> For example, a person born in Mexico and brought to the United States<sup>as an infant</sup> would probably not consider himself as a migrant. Moreover, it is also<sup>not clear how</sup> many of those who enter the United States illegally are,<sup>in fact, included in the "foreign-</sup> born" population figures. As some observers have suggested,<sup>the U.S.Census data may</sup> be grossly undercounting the actual migrant population<sup>that is living -legally or illegally</sup>

**9** While the Carrington and Detragiache (1998) study is based upon data from the 1990<sup>U.S.Population</sup> Census, this study uses newly released data from the 2000 U.S. Census.
8

- in the United States.1<sup>0</sup> Since illegal migrants are likely to be<sup>less educated than legal</sup> migrants, this may in turn lead to an overestimate of the<sup>averagelevelof migrant</sup> education. This source of bias, however, should not seriously<sup>distort our estimates of the</sup> migration rate of individuals with tertiary education, since<sup>those with higherlevels of</sup> education are more likely to be in the United States on<sup>a legal basis.</sup>

The second step is to estimate from the 2000 U.S. Census data<sup>the number of</sup> "foreign born" from each country who are 25 years of age or<sup>older.This is necessaryto</sup> maximize the comparability of the immigrant population<sup>from eachcountry with the</sup> Barro and Lee (2000) data set, which measures the educational<sup>attainmentof the</sup> population over the age of 25 in each country.

The third step is to calculate for each population from each labor-exporting country the number of migrants in three specific educational<sup>categories:primary or less</sup> (0-8 years of schooling), secondary (9-12 years of schooling)<sup>and tertiary(13 or more</sup> years of schooling). For the United States, this is done by<sup>using data froma special</sup> tabulation from the 2000 U.S. Census done by the U.S. Census<sup>Bureau. This special</sup> tabulation shows by county of origin the educational attainment<sup>level of the foreign born</sup> population living in the United States in the year 2000.

The final step is to use the Barro and Lee educational attainment<sup>data set to</sup> compute migration rates for each labor-exporting country for<sup>the same three educational</sup> categories mentioned above. These calculations enable us<sup>toshow whatfraction of each</sup> country's educational group has migrated to the United States.

> 10 In 1992 the stock of illegal immigrants in the United States was<sup>estimatedat 3.4 million,or about16</sup> percent of the stock of the "foreign-born" population (Borjas,<sup>1995).</sup>
9 Since this study relies heavily upon the educational attainment data contained in Barro and Lee (2000), it is useful to describe this data set in some detail. Barro and Lee base their estimates of the educational attainment of the population in various countries on either the most recent census data or on historical schooling enrollment figures. In cases where enrollment figures are used, estimates of the current stock of education are constructed using a perpetual inventory method. Of course, various factors (including migration) may distort estimates based on historical enrollment patterns. Nevertheless, the Barro and Lee data set represents the best available set of estimates of educational attainment for a broad cross-section of developing countries.

# 11Ib. Estimating Migration to the OECD

For OECD countries, data on migration flows by country are collected and published in Trends in International Migration: Annual Report (2001). Unfortunately, these data are not as comprehensive as the U.S. Census data, and they differ from the United States data in at least three key ways.

First, and most importantly, the data for OECD countries do not report the educational attainment of migrants. For example, no data are available on the educational distribution of Turkish migrants to Germany. For the lack of alternative, we will assume that the educational distribution of migrants from each labor-exporting country to the OECD is the same as that for the United States.'<sup>1</sup> In other words, if 40 percent of Turkish migrants to the United States have a tertiary education, we will assume that the same percentage of Turkish migrants to the OECD have this level of education. This procedure is most likely to be accurate for those labor-exporting "This is the same strategy used by Carrington and Detragiache (1998) in their study of brain drain.
10 countries which send similar numbers of migrants to both the United States and the OECD. However, for some labor-exporting countries - like Tunisia or Turkey - which send much larger numbers of migrants to the OECD than to the United States, this procedure is likely to be quite problematic. For instance, our procedure will impute to the German Turks the same high level of education as is found in their United States counterparts. This may, in turn, lead to a gross overestimate of the brain drain from a country like Turkey.

The second problem with the OECD data lies in its different way of classifying immigrants. Since United States-born children of immigrants have US citizenship, the United States defines an immigrant as a person who was born abroad to non-US citizens. Most OECD countries, however, follow an ethnicity-based definition of immigration status. This method classifies a person on the basis of the ethnicity of the parent, rather than on place of birth. Thus, a child of Turkish parents bom in Germany is typically classified as an immigrant. This different way of classifying immigrants has the net effect of increasing the stock of immigrants in any particular OECD country, and perhaps biasing our estimates of the educational status of "migrants" who were actually bom, raised and educated in that OECD country.

The third difference between the OECD and the United States data has to do with the number of labor-exporting countries recorded. As noted above, the 2000 U.S. Census data can be used to count the number of migrants from about 50 different labor-exporting countries. By contrast, for each OECD country, OECD data only record the number of migrants from approximately the top fifteen-labor exporting countries. On the one hand, this might not be a significant problem for large labor-exporting countries, like Turkey.
11 However, for smaller labor-exporting countries, like<sup>Brazil or Sri Lanka,the actual</sup> number of migrants to any particular OECD country might<sup>not be recorded.This makes</sup> it difficult to accurately compare and contrast migration<sup>rates between differentlabor-</sup> exporting countries.

IV. Brain Drain to the United States: Migration Rates and<sup>EducationalLevels</sup> This section presents estimates of immigrants in the United<sup>States by educational</sup> attainment, both in absolute number and as a fraction<sup>of theindividualsin thelabor-</sup> exporting country with the same level of educational<sup>attainment.As explained in the</sup> previous section, following the reporting conventions of<sup>the U.S.Census Bureau,these</sup> figures consider as immigrants all "foreign-born" individuals<sup>residing in the United</sup> States. Thus, these figures may well include substantial<sup>numbers of people who are not</sup> usually regarded as either migrants or as part of the<sup>brain drain, suchas individuals who</sup> migrated to the United States as children and have few<sup>ties with their original country of</sup> birth.

Table 4 presents immigration data to the United States for<sup>all 24 study countries.</sup> It is striking to note that one single country<sup>-</sup> Mexico<sup>-dominatesmigration to the United</sup> States. In our sample about 50 percent of all immigrants<sup>in the United Statescomefrom</sup> Mexico!1<sup>2</sup> The second largest source of immigrants is<sup>the China, PR,which supplies less</sup> than 10 percent of total migrants.

Table 4 shows the key role that education plays in migration.<sup>In the sample as a</sup> whole, about 67 percent of all immigrants have a secondary<sup>education or higher.This</sup>

> 1<sup>2</sup> According to the 2000 U.S. Population Census, of<sup>the total foreign-born populationimthe UnitedStates</sup> (31,107,000), Mexico accounts for 29.5 percent (9,177,000)
12 figure is even higher if the very large number of poorly educated immigrants from one single country (Mexico) are excluded. Excluding Mexico from the sample, 83 percent of all migrants to the United States have a secondary education or higher.

As the case of Mexico suggests, the educational attainment level of migrants varies considerably from country to country. Focusing on those immigrants with the highest level of education (tertiary), the share of immigrants to the United States with a tertiary education varies from a low of 14 percent (Mexico) to a high of 80 percent (India). In general, there is a strong tendency for the level of educational attainment to vary inversely with distance from the United States. Latin American and Caribbean countries generally produce a lower share of migrants with a tertiary education, while those countries which are more distant (particularly in South Asia) produce the highest share of tertiary-educated migrants.'<sup>3</sup> This phenomenon may reflect the impact of migration costs (both financial and time). That is, prospective migrants with low levels of education in countries which are close to the United States are better able to afford the costs of legal (and illegal) migration than similar prospective migrants in more distant countries.

Table 5 presents estimated migration rates by educational category for each laborexporting country. Focusing on the highest (tertiary) level of education, the results suggest that - for most countries -- migration to the United States is not causing much brain drain. For 14 of the 20 countries for which data exist, less than 10 percent of those with a tertiary education have migrated to the United States. This result even holds for China, PR, which is the third-largest source of immigrants to the United States (see Table

> **13** According to Table 4, while the share of tertiary-educated migrants from South Asia is 76.5 percent, the

> share of such migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean is only 19.8 percent.
13 4). In China, PR, only 2 percent of those with a tertiary education have<sup>migratedto the</sup> United States.

However, for a handful of countries, Table 5 reveals that migration<sup>to the United</sup> States does cause brain drain. For the five Latin American countries<sup>(Dominican</sup> Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica and Mexico) located<sup>closest to the United</sup> States, migration takes a large share of the best educated. While<sup>16 percentof those with</sup> a tertiary education in Mexico migrate to the United States,<sup>over 360 percentof those</sup> with this level of education in Jamaica migrate. The very high<sup>migration rate of thebest</sup> educated from Jamaica means that the number of migrants<sup>with a tertiaryeducationfrom</sup> this country actually exceeds the number of local residents with<sup>this levelof education.</sup> In other words, the estimated figure for tertiary-educated migrants<sup>from Jamaica must</sup> somehow overstate the true size of the brain drain from that country.

The second theme in Table 5 is that low-skilled migration<sup>to the United Statesis</sup> not very important for most labor-exporting countries. There<sup>are only two countries(El-</sup> Salvador and Mexico) for which the migration rate for those<sup>witha primaryschool or less</sup> education is greater than 10 percent. The highest figure for<sup>primary school migrantsis</sup> that of El Salvador (12.4 percent), followed by Mexico (10.8 percent).<sup>While the</sup> migration data in Table 5 do not include the sizeable (and unknown)<sup>numberof illegal</sup> migrants in the United States, who probably have much lower<sup>levels of education,the</sup> results for legal migration seem clear. Legal migration to the<sup>UnitedStatesinvolves the</sup> movement of better educated people, people who are probably<sup>moreeducated than those</sup> who remain at home.
14 The final finding in Table 5 is that total migration rates to the United States are not very high for most countries. Total migration rates exceed 10 percent for only four countries: Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Jamaica and Mexico. All four of these countries are in Latin America, and three of them have fairly small populations.<sup>14</sup> It should come as no surprise that small, Latin American countries have high average rates of migration because this is a consequence of United States immigration policy. By setting annual limits on the numbers of migrants that can come from each labor-exporting country, regardless of size, United States policy in effect favors lightly-populated countries in the Western Hemisphere. A limit of 20,000 legal migrants per year per country is much more of a binding constraint for Pakistan than it is for Jamaica, and this is one reason why Jamaica has the highest total migration rate (33.3 percent) in the table.

# V. Brain Drain to the OECD: Migration Rates and Educational Levels

Table 6 presents data for 13 of the 24 study countries for which immigration data to the OECD exist. As in the case of immigration to the United States, one country dominates: Turkey. In our sample about 40 percent of all immigrants to the OECD come from Turkey. The second largest source of immigrants in our sample is China, PR, which supplies about 15 percent of total migrants. Two North African countries -- Morocco and Tunisia -- combine together to produce about 15 percent of all migrants to the OECD.

Table 6 shows that education plays an even more important role in migration in the OECD than in the United States. While 67 percent of all immigrants to the United

> **14** The Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Jamaica each have a total (2000) population of less than 10 million.
15 States have a secondary education or higher, fully 88 percent of all immigrants to the OECD have this level of education. Moreover, of these secondary-educated immigrants to the OECD, over two-thirds -- 69 percent -- have a tertiary education.

However, it is important to emphasize that these estimates of the number of educated migrants probably overestimate the true extent of the brain drain to the OECD for two reasons. First, levels of educational attainment for migrants to the OECD must be estimated, rather than observed as in the United States, because the OECD does not collect data on the educational characteristics of immigrants. For example, since the educational distribution of Turkish migrants to the OECD must be estimated on the basis of U.S. data, and the educational distribution of these OECD migrants might be quite different from that of their United States-bound compatriots, the figures in Table 7 might over-estimate the extent of the brain drain. Second, as in the United States, published data on the number of immnigrants to the OECD exclude the large (and unknown) number of illegal immigrants to these countries, who are likely to have lower levels of education. For instance, it is likely that a large number of illegal immigrants from North Africa to the OECD have low levels of education, simply because rates of educational attainment in these North African countries are low.1<sup>5</sup> Table 7 presents migration rates by educational category for each labor-exporting country. Focusing on the tertiary level of education, the available data suggest that migration to the OECD causes more of a brain drain than it does in the United States. For 5 of the 13 countries for which data exist, more than 10 percent of those with a tertiary education have migrated to the OECD. For these five countries, the rates of

> 15 For example, in Morocco and Tunisia about 76 percent of the population over age 25 has a primary school education or less.
16 migration for those with a tertiary education<sup>range from16.5percent (SriLanka)to 95.8</sup> percent (Jamaica). The latter country - Jamaica<sup>-must be suffering froma particularly</sup> high degree of brain drain, because it has the highest<sup>migration ratefortertiary-educated</sup> people to both the OECD and the United States<sup>(seeTable5).</sup> The data in Table 7 suggest that migration<sup>to the OECD differsfrom that to the</sup> United States in another important way. While<sup>migration to the UnitedStates tends to</sup> take a high percentage of tertiary-educated<sup>peoplefrom neighboring(Latin American)</sup> countries, in the OECD the link between migration,<sup>educationand geography is not so</sup> obvious. While three of the countries (Morocco,<sup>Tunisia and Turkey) with the highest</sup> rates for tertiary-educated migration are located<sup>close to the OECD,two other prominent</sup> countries (Jamaica and Sri Lanka) are not. More<sup>work needsto be donetoidentify the</sup> reasons why Jamaica and Sri Lanka send such<sup>a high proportion of their "best and</sup> brightest" to the OECD.

The final point to be noted in Table 7 is that<sup>total migration ratesto theOECD are</sup> lower than those to the United States. While four<sup>labor-exporting countries have total</sup> migration rates in excess of 10 percent to<sup>the UnitedStates, no country in the OECDhas</sup> a total migration rate above that mark. Jamaica<sup>has the highest overall migration rate to</sup> the OECD, at 8.7 percent. Again, the combination<sup>of small population and a high degree</sup> of migration abroad lead Jamaica to record a higher<sup>migration rate thansuch large, labor-</sup> exporting countries, like Turkey and the<sup>Philippines.</sup>
17

# VI. Conclusion

While the level of intemational migration and remittances continues to grow between countries, data on the whole process of international migration remains fragmented, scattered and unreliable. At the international level, there is no consistent set of statistics on either the number or skill characteristics of international migrants. At the national level, labor-exporting countries do not typically keep track either of the number or the skill characteristics of migrants. And while some labor-receiving countries do keep track these issues, they often miss the large numbers of migrants who enter their borders on an illegal basis.

Using a new data set of 24 large, labor-exporting countries, and employing estimates of migration and educational attainment based on United States and OECD records, this paper has tried to overcome these data problems to answer such policy questions as: How pervasive is the brain drain from labor-exporting countries? Which countries or regions of the developing world are most affected? Does international migration deprive labor-exporting countries of a sizeable fraction of their "best and brightest," or are their numbers too small to worry about?

Five conclusions to these, and similar questions, emerge from this paper. While these conclusions are often based on estimates of migration which are rough and in need of further refinement, they are still suggestive.

The first finding is that the level of international migration continues to grow annually. While no accurate, time-series data exist on changes in the total level of international migration, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) does keep annual records on the level of official remittances sent home by migrant workers. Over the last twenty
18 years, these records show that<sup>the officialworker remittances have increasedat a steady</sup> 3.86 percent per year for the<sup>24 study countries.16This annualrate of increasefor official</sup> worker remittances is higher<sup>than that recorded for the annual rate of GDP growth (1.61</sup> percent per year) in 119 low and<sup>lower middle-incomedevelopingcountries over thelast</sup> twenty years.

The second finding from this study<sup>is that with respect tolegal migration,</sup> international migration definitely<sup>involves the movementof the educated.In both the</sup> United States and the OECD,<sup>individuals with a primary education accountfor less than</sup> 30 percent of total immigrants.<sup>The vast majority of immigrantsto both regions(67</sup> percent in the United States and<sup>88 percentin the OECD) havea secondary(highschool)</sup> education or higher.<sup>17</sup> From an<sup>educationalstandpoint,internationalmigrants represent</sup> an elite that is much better educated<sup>than the rest of the populationin their countryof</sup> origin.

The third finding is that while<sup>migrantsare well-educated,international migration</sup> does not tend to take a very high<sup>proportionof the best educated (tertiary)population in</sup> labor-exporting countries.<sup>For 22 of the33 countriesin which educational attainment</sup> data can be estimated,<sup>18</sup> less<sup>than10 percent of thetertiary-educatedpopulationof labor-</sup> exporting countries has migrated<sup>to the United Statesor the OECD.Part of the reason for</sup> this finding is that large labor-exporting<sup>countriesare alsotypically large population</sup>

> 16 If the figures for remittance flows<sup>which occur outsideof official bankingchannels could be included,it</sup> is likely that total remittances -<sup>officialand unofficial -would have increased at an even faster rate over</sup> the last twenty years.

> " As emphasized in the paper, these<sup>figures do not include the large numbers of illegal (and presumably</sup> less educated) immigrants<sup>to the United Statesor the OECD.</sup>

**18** Table 5 presents 20 countries<sup>with educationalattainmentdata, and Table 7 presents13 countries.</sup>
19 countries, which have a substantial number of tertiary-educated people. For example, one of the largest labor-exporters in this study - China, PR - has such a large pool of tertiary-educated people that international migration has a relatively small proportional impact on the domestic labor-market for the "best and brightest".'<sup>9</sup> The fourth result follows from the preceding. For a handful of labor-exporting countries, international migration does cause brain drain. For example, for the five Latin American countries (Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica and Mexico) located closest to the United States, migration takes a large share of the best educated. Sixteen percent of those with a tertiary education in Mexico migrate to the United States, and over 360 percent of those with this level of education in Jamaica migrate. With respect to the OECD, international migration takes more than 10 percent of those with a tertiary education from five countries: Jamaica, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey and Sri Lanka. Three of these large brain drain countries are located close to the OECD, while two of them (Jamaica and Sri Lanka) are not.

The final finding concerns promising directions for future work on the issue of brain drain. Results from this paper suggest that there is a close relationship between brain drain, geographical proximity to labor-receiving countries, and the size of the population (especially the educated population) of labor-exporting countries. In many cases lightly-populated countries located close to either the United States or the OECD suffer the highest rates of brain drain for tertiary-educated people. Good examples of this phenomenon include Jamaica, El Salvador and Tunisia, each of which have populations of less than ten million. More work needs to be done to clarify the relationship between

> 19 For exarmple, China, PR has an estimated number of 20,562,000 people who have completed a tertiary education. Of this pool of highly-educated people, about 2.2 percent are immigrants in the United States and about 1.4 percent are immigrants in the OECD.
20 brain drain, geography and population, and to identify possible policy programs for

> ameliorating the possibly adverse impact of brain drain on these countries.