Brain Drain

I- INTRODUCTION Brain Drain: The Truth to This. Board Exams, Bar Exams, NCLEX, Civil Service, the different kinds of examinations meant to determine the level of qualification for employment worldwide. Philippines have its topnotchers in these examinations, but, where are they now? With amazing jobs, higher wages, and better lives offered in other countries, did our geniuses actually leaving for good? Brain Drain. Is there truth to this? Brain Drain or otherwise known as Human Capital Flight is the emigration of trained and skilled individuals to other nations or jurisdictions, due to conflicts, lack of opportunity, health hazards where they are living or for some other reasons. The term “Brain Drain” has gained wide usage in the year 1960s when growth of migration of skilled personnel from developing countries to developed countries accelerated. Brain drain can occur either when individuals who study abroad and complete their education do not return to their home country, or when individuals educated in their home country emigrate for higher wages or better opportunities. The second form is arguably worse, because it drains more resources from the home country. This phenomenon is perhaps most problematic for developing nations, where it is widespread. In these countries, higher education and professional certification are often viewed as the surest path to escape from a troubled economy or confused political situation. Among the countries in Asia and the Pacific, the country with the largest amount of brain drain is the Philippines, with 7,924,188 migrants. With these, the great majority have a tertiary education. The first wave of Philippine labor migration to the United States was based on skills needed in the farms, factories, and military facilities, the second wave included many more professionals. Doctors, nurses, and engineers traveled to the United States in the 1960s to support its booming economy while young American men were busy fighting in the Vietnam War. It was also at this time that the U.S. Government started to encourage Filipino graduates to study in U.S. universities through generous scholarship and exchange programs for master and doctoral degrees. Many of these students stayed on as professionals and became American citizens. This second

wave was small and short lived, but it started the phenomenon now known as “brain drain” as it attracted some of the best and brightest graduates of the top Philippine universities. Up until now, the so-called “Brain Drain” continues to live through these developing countries. Until when will this Human Capital Flight end? If this Brain Drain crisis continues to pave its way, just what will possibly happen to the Philippines? This Concept Paper seeks to specifically answer the following questions: •

What factors perceived are as identified that lead people to go abroad?

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What are the effects of the massive migration system of Filipinos to the Philippine Health Care and economic stability?

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What are the effective means to encourage Filipinos to establish their consensus to stay in our country and not be lured of the things that the other countries can offer?

II – FACTORS AFFECTING FILIPINO DIASPORA

Indeed, we cannot deny the boom of population in our country today. Mostly everyday, hundreds of people are taken to the hospitals seeking for help and medical assistance. Yes, many are attending to those unfortunates but are they really the experts? The chronic shortage of personnel to serve new and continuing demands upon public health has now assumed crisis proportions. In some professional categories, staffs of public health agencies have decreased nationally in absolute numbers. Too few trained workers are entering to replace those who are leaving [Schaefer, D.P.A., and Hileboe, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.P.H.A.; 1967]. Table1.1 shows the estimated Filipino migrants living the Philippines for greener pastures. It includes the total Domestic employment conditions and overseas migration as of 2005. In spite of the pitiful situation of the Filipinos, we make it a habit to risk everything for our loved-ones. We do anything to the extent that we prefer to stay away from them in exchange for their happiness. What are really the factors affecting this rampant fleeing? We cited two major causes which lead to the uncontrolled migration – the push and pull factors. Push Factors •

Not enough jobs

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Few opportunities

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"Primitive" conditions

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Political fear

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Poor medical care

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Not being able to practice religion

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Loss of wealth

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Natural Disasters

Pull Factors

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Job opportunities

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Better living conditions

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Political and/or religious freedom

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Enjoyment

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Education

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Better medical care

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Security

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Family links

Push Factors Push factors come in many forms. Sometimes these factors leave people with no choice but to leave their country of origin. Following are three examples of push factors driving people to emigrate from their home country. Lack of Jobs/Poverty Economics provides the main reason behind migration. In some countries jobs simply do not exist for a great deal of the population. In others, the gap between the rewards of labor in the sending and receiving country are great enough so as to warrant a move. For instance, India has recently experienced a surge in emigration due to poverty and lack of job opportunity. . The greatest challenge facing India is creating enough jobs for its burgeoning population. India's unemployed have never been properly estimated but they could total 100 million. The number of skilled workers coming out of Indian universities has never been higher. Meanwhile, the number of domestic jobs available to them is minimal. Only about 0.7m jobs a year have been created in the past few years, most of them in the public sector. This will not keep skilled workers in the country. Many instead go to the United States, where their skills and their lower wage demands are sought after by high-tech companies. As the population grows at 20 million per year, and more and more students graduate from technical universities, India may experience a great deal more emigration. “As to the Philippines, key reasons include poor remuneration, bad

working conditions, an oppressive political climate, persecution of intellectuals, and discrimination. Researchers cite lack of funding, poor facilities, limited career structures, and poor intellectual stimulation as important reasons for dissatisfaction. Other key reasons for emigrating are personal ones. These include security, the threat of violence,10 and the wish to provide a good education for their children” [Pang; 2002]. Civil Strife/War/Political and Religious Persecution Some migrants are impelled to cross national borders by war or persecution at home. Some of these migrants end up in receiving countries as refugees or asylum seekers. The 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees defined the qualifications for such migrants and bound signatory countries not to return these newcomers to places where they could be persecuted. An example of this factor at work is the conflict in Tibet. During the first half of the twentieth century, Tibet was ruled politically and religiously by the Dalai Lama, the head of the Tibetan Buddhist religion, but lived in the shadow of neighboring China. In 1950, Chinese troops took over the region, disassembling the existing political structure and persecuting religious figures, and in 1959 a Tibetan rebellion was brutally suppressed. Tibetan refugees assert that a million of their countrymen have died in the last half century as a result of Chinese rule. In order to escape this fate, many Tibetans have fled over treacherous mountain terrain to India and Nepal. Despite the existence of many real conflicts such as in Tibet, however, many developed countries believe that would-be refugees and asylum-seekers are in fact mere economic migrants looking for an easier way to enter a rich country. For example, the United States has declared that most people from Haiti are leaving the country because it is the most impoverished in the Western Hemisphere and deny that social and political strife is widespread enough there to justify allowing Haitians into the United States. Haitians arriving in the United States after a dangerous trip by sea are therefore detained in secure locations and have to pass a rigorous examination of their qualifications as refugees or asylum-seekers or otherwise they will be returned to Haiti. At the same time, people arriving from Cuba are generally allowed to mix in with the population while awaiting a decision on their status, which is usually granted because

they come from a Communist dictatorship. Haitian-Americans and their supporters have protested what they call an unfair distinction between the treatments of the two groups, but the U.S. government maintains that Haiti, though not a perfect democracy, is not a dictatorship such that Haitians deserve immediate consideration as refugees. Environmental Problems Environmental problems and natural disasters often cause the loss of money, homes, and jobs. In the middle of the nineteenth century, for example, Ireland experienced a famine never before seen in its history. By late fall 1845, the main staple of the Irish diet, the potato, was practically wiped out. With the government not clear on how to respond, people started dying of starvation. The famine killed hundreds of thousands and forced millions of Irish to flee. These emigrants were also encouraged to leave Ireland by their English landlords, who often rented out unseaworthy vessels that became known as "coffin ships," and by the British government, which offered cheap fares to Canada. The large population of Americans and Canadians of Irish descent, especially in Boston, New York, and Chicago, can trace its ancestry to this period.

Pull Factors Whereas push factors usually drive migrants out of their countries of origin, pull factors generally decide where these travelers end up. The positive aspects of some receiving countries serve to attract more migrants than others. Following are three examples of the pull factors attracting migrants to receiving countries. Higher standards of living/Higher wages Economics provide the both biggest push and pull factor for potential migrants. People moving to more developed countries will often find that the same work they were doing at home is rewarded abroad with higher wages. They will also find a greater safety net of welfare benefits should they be unable to work. Aware of this situation, migrants

are drawn to those countries where they can maximize benefits. For example, Mexican migrants coming to America do not move in order to escape unemployment at home. Rather, it has been estimated that 80 percent of those who leave Mexico have jobs before they go. But, the wage gap between American and Mexican workers has widened since the creation of the North American Free Trade Area. U.S. wages are in fact an estimated 13 times Mexico's. Thus, Mexican migrants come to America because they are attracted by the higher hourly wages, not simply to find any work at all. Labor Demand Almost all developed countries have found that they need migrants' labor. Rich economies create millions of jobs that domestic workers refuse to fill but migrant workers will cross borders to take. In 2001, the British minister of foreign affairs, Robin Cook, gave a speech in which he argued that the country needed to continue taking in foreign workers to meet labor demand. He said, "Legitimate immigration is the necessary and unavoidable result of economic success, which generates a demand for labor faster than can be met by the birth-rate of a modern developed country." The speech was unpopular, however, because many British citizens are concerned about immigration changing the national culture. Likewise, Ireland has recently seen a surge of immigration because its economy prospered during the 1990s. Ironically, Ireland, which had sent so much of its population abroad over the last two centuries, started receiving immigrants seeking work. This has caused conflict among native Irish and the newcomers, including discrimination not unlike that faced by Irish who had previously immigrated to other countries. Political and Religious Freedom Throughout history the Jews have faced persecution or discrimination in most parts of the world. Especially in the late nineteenth century, long-standing hatred against Jews in the Russian Empire exploded in "pograms," attacks on Jews that led to murders, rapes, and arson against Jewish homes and stores, often encouraged and assisted by the

government. Hundreds of thousands of Jews from across Eastern Europe fled to the United States, Canada, and South America, while others joined the old Jewish community in the Holy Land, then controlled by the Turkish Ottoman Empire, to help reestablish the independent Jewish state the Roman Empire had destroyed almost 2000 years before. Hundreds of thousands more Jews moved to Israel in the late 1940s in the aftermath of the Holocaust and after being expelled from Arab countries as a result of the war over Israel's creation. (At the same time, hundreds of thousands of Arabs fled from Israel, and they and their descendants live in neighboring Arab countries.) III- EFFECTS OF THE NEVER ENDING DIASPORA The countries with the largest numbers of Filipino permanent residents are the United States, Canada, and Australia. In the United States alone, there are reportedly 2 to 2.5 million Filipinos with a median family income of about $60,000. The five states with the largest populations of foreign-born Filipinos are California, Hawaii, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois. Combined, these five states constitute 71% of total foreign-born Filipino population in the United States (Commission on Filipinos Overseas). In addition, it is estimated that there are approximately 1.5 million undocumented Filipino migrants living primarily in the United States, Malaysia and Singapore. Temporary workers number about 3.4 million and are found primarily in Saudi Arabia, Japan, and Hong Kong. “Globalization has opened a lot of opportunities for Filipino professionals. The diaspora of Filipino professionals is mainly related to the performance of the Philippine economy as well as the general feeling of hopelessness the country is plagued with." [Benitez-Chua; 2006]. We have noted several reasons why Filipinos choose going and living abroad. There are a number of factors included and all of them are fairly reasonable. On the other hand, even if those reasons are good enough, there are other elements to be reflected upon. The naked effects of it on our health care system and our economy may not be noticeable to the blindfolded eyes of Filipinos, but good or bad it may be, it might possibly cause a drastic setback to the Filipino race.

Economic Outcome For a large number of Filipino families, the money sent home as remittances by their love ones abroad is a lifeline - their only means for staying afloat. Most workers, though, once resorting to finding work overseas, are forced to continue that for the rest of their working lives. When they return to the Philippines, there are still no jobs for them to fill as there are millions of unemployed Filipinos also looking for work This chart shows how remittances are sent to family members remaining in the Philippines:

Courtesy of http://www.census.gov.ph/data/pressrelease/2001/of00tx.html The Philippine government has heavily encouraged this migration phenomenon to help stimulate its economy. This has not come without heavy cost, though. These costs are born very heavily by Filipino people more especially by Filipino families. According to Philippine economic indicators, the remittances of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) exceed foreign direct investment in the country. Remittances per annum amount to about US$12-14 billion, which only includes those working legally abroad, whereas many OFWs working in domestic and other service work are undocumented.

The Philippine government relies heavily on the remittances the OFWs send to their families to compensate for the lack of spending on social services such as health and education, to boost domestic consumption and to cover its yearly budget deficits. And the sad truth is that the income from the labour migration business is mostly spent in this way and not on productive investments, which means that the migrant workers will work forever abroad, in order that their families can simply survive and because there are even fewer options for them to return to the country, whose economy is bankrupt and corrupt. This dramatic increase in labour migration has created a large population of transnational migrant families. Thousands of children now grow up apart from one or both parents, as the parents are forced to work outside the country in order to send their children to school, give them access to quality health care, or, in some cases, just provide them with enough food. Remittance estimates are imprecise, however, because remittances often move through private, unrecorded channels. Yes, the Philippines has annual OFW remittances of 12-14 billion US dollars, excluding the non-formal channels, and NO that does not compensate for the social costs of migration and the development of the country. Despite this enormous amount of remittance or cash inflow, labour migration does not significantly improve the development prospects of the country of origin. The Philippines have had great difficulty in converting remittance income into sustainable productive capacity. In addition, most Third World countries are able to exercise little control over the composition of their labour exports—rather, they are determined by foreign labour markets, and may bear no relation to "surplus" labour at home. The Philippines has focused quite deliberately on "producing" skilled labour for foreign markets, but remains passive in the face of international supply and demand.