1079 



— 'The standardization of professional training, easing lateral 

 movement across national boundaries ; and 



— Official encouragement of preference provisions, work per- 

 mits, and other provisions in state-regulated immigration laws 

 designed to attract talent from this new world market. 

 With such phenomena in mind, Dr. Adams observed, "today, as never 

 before, there is a 'common market' for brainpower which transcends 

 national boundaries." ^^ This "common market"' of manpower is the 

 seminal source for brain drain. 



PROCESS OF DECOLONIZATION 



Decolonization, a second major trend in the postwar world, has had 

 a fundamental impact upon emigration during this period. Inadver- 

 tently, this process has had perhaps the most serious consequences for 

 the brain drain problem. 



Decolonization, spurred on by movements for national indepen- 

 dence, formally broke the imperial link connecting the Afro-Asian 

 colonial territories with the metropolitan states of Europe. The full 

 dimension of this process can be seen by the statistical fact that during 

 the 20 years from 1944 to early 1964, 52 nations of the world, almost 

 entirely from the Afro-Asian area, established their independence. 

 Xumbering 1,005,931,000 people and occupying 11,537.599 square miles 

 of territory, these nations constituted 31.63 percent of the world's 

 population (at mid-1963) and 21.19 percent of the total area of the 

 world, excluding Antarctica.^® In a very real sense the emerging Afro- 

 Asian nations constituted a "third world," 



EFFECTS OF DECOLONIZATION AND BRAIN DRAIN 



The brain drain problem, at least its most serious manifestations, 

 has its roots largely in the emigration of professionals from the 

 former colonial areas of Asia and Africa : here is where the majority 

 of LDCs are located, and it is emigration from the LDCs that creates 

 the most serious concern for brain drain.'-'' 



Independence proved to be only a formal act, because in j^ractice 

 the former colonial areas continued to maintain ties in varying degrees 

 of closeness with the former imperial centers. In fact, a fairly well 

 demarcated pattern of emigration has taken shape from the former 

 colonial areas to the imperial centers. By virtue of the former colonial- 

 imperial link the emigrant moves into what he believes to be familiar 

 circles. This familiarity eases the burden of transition between two 

 essentially different cultures. The imperial tradition may also en- 

 gender a belief that by migrating to the imperial center, the former 

 colonial is moving up into a superior and more exciting culture.^^ The 

 attraction is often so alluring that the former colonial remains, to the 

 loss of his developing native country. 



esjbid., p. 3. 



■"' l".S. Con,l^•es^=. Senate. Committee on Aeronautical anri Space Sciences, Soviet Space 

 Programs, 1962-65: Goals and Purposes, Achievements, Plans, and International Implica- 

 tions, 89th Cong., 2d sess.. 1966, p. 21. (Committee print) 



•" Don Patinkin, "A 'Nationalist' Model," In Adams, The Brain Drain, pp. 92-93. 



»s Johnson, op. cit., p. 71. 



