1084 



British Minister of Technology estimated that from 1958 to 1963, ex- 

 chiding students returning home, 19,000 British and Commonwealth 

 scientists and engineers left the country, but the loss was nearly offset 

 by a counterflow of 15,000 from abroad."^ Significantly, nine-tenths 

 of the members of the Commonwealth fall within the underdeveloped 

 category.^^8 What Britain has gained by this inflow from the develop- 

 ing Commonwealth countries is revealing. Dr. James A. Perkins states 

 frankly that Britain was "inadvertently bleeding the Commonwealth 

 of its most highly trained men." "^ Medicine was the major field for 

 brain drain to Britain ; fewer scientific and engineering personnel were 

 absorbed by Britain compared with the United States and Canada.^^" 

 According to Nuri Eren, socialized medicine "would have been im- 

 possible without the inflow of foreign trained doctors and nurses. The 

 foreign-born and trained constituted more than one-third of the health 

 personnel in Britain." ^^^ Official British statistics indicate that 43.9 

 percent of the junior medical staff of Britain's National Health Serv- 

 ice was of foreign origin.^"- Moreover, despite programs of aid and 

 technical cooperation to the Commonwealth, Britain has more special- 

 ists of all kinds from all the Commonwealth countries, including 

 more than 4,000 doctors, than there are British specialists in those 

 countries.^2^ Another indicator of the high intensity of absorption 

 from the Commonwealth is the immicrration of nurses. Between 25 and 

 40 percent of all 256,000 nurses working in the British National Health 

 Service were born outside the British Isles, almost 75 percent in the 

 developing Commonwealth countries.^^* 



Nonreturn of foreign students from the Commonwealth has added 

 to the plus side of Britain's brain drain equation. In 1967, Britain 

 had 73,000 foreign students of whom 54,000 came from the LDCs. 

 Betw^een the academic years 1959-60 and 1962-63, students from the 

 new Commonwealth countries increased 40.6 percent; the following 

 year students from East and West Africa alone numbered 15,000. How 

 many of these students remained in Britain cannot be determined pre- 

 cisely, but it is estimated that students remaining permanently or semi- 

 permanently abroad following the end of their formal studies have 

 been increasing at a compound rate of 20 percent per annum, and in 

 the case of LDC students, at a rate still higher.^^^ 



MOVEMENT TO FRANCE 



Statistics are inadequate to determine the extent of brain drain to 

 France, It is known, however, that 6 million of France's 50 million 

 population are foreign and that one-fourth of these come from the de- 

 veloping countries of the French Union. The foreign population rose 

 40 percent during the period 1962-67 ; that for France proper rose 6 

 percent. Most of the foreign population is unskilled. Among senior 



I" Thomas, op. clt., p. 35. 



"8 The Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 13, 1973, p. 3. 



"« Perkins, op. clt., p. 617. 



123 Henderson, op. clt., p. 28. 



i2iBren, op. clt., p. 11. 



'^ Adams, op. clt., p. 2. 



'-^ Iffland and Rieben, op. clt., p. 50. 



"* Henderson, op. clt., pp. 58-59. This section of Mr. Henderson's study contains a wealth 

 of statistics on all aspects of medical brain drain to Britain from the Commonwealth 

 countries. 



'25 Henderson, op. clt., p. 72. 



