The relationship between country characteristics, development levels and brain drain - A quantitative analysis

Brain drain refers to the international migration of highly skilled people. It can affect countries of all development levels, but it is the brain drain from developing countries that has garnered the most attention. There are two purposes with this study, the first is to find the relationship between brain drain and unemployment, GNI per capita and political stability. The second purpose is to see if these relationships differ depending on a country’s development level. Studying brain drain from countries of all development levels may bring more insights to the phenomenon that could help countries trying to mitigate their brain drain. The theory of push- and pull-factors state that different factors within a country work to either retain and attract people, or push people away. Whether or not a factor is working to push people or pull people depends on the level of the factor, and also the perception of it by different individuals. This study conducted linear, nonlinear and dummy variable regressions using data from 133 countries from 2015 and 2016. The measurement used for brain drain was a country’s capacity to retain talent, and the independent variables used were unemployment, GNI per capita and political stability. The results showed that unemployment is negatively related to the capacity to retain talent while GNI per capita and political stability are positively related to the capacity to retain talent. These relationships differ depending on if a country is developing or is developed. Comparisons between countries regarding determinants of brain drain are possibly more significant if the countries are more homogenous than simply their development levels, further studies are thus needed in order for countries to know what they need to do to mitigate their brain drain