IV. Causes of Brain Drain : Interaction of "Push/Pull" Forces 



Why professional and highly skilled persons emigrate on the order 

 of magnitude described above is a basic question to be addressed in 

 this study. To arrive at the answer would be to clarify responsi- 

 bility, suggest policy directions, and elucidate more sharply the re- 

 lationship between brain drain and foreign policy. 



To cite Adam Smith again, since human baggage is the most im- 

 mobile of all, the causes of professional migration are reduced to the 

 interaction of "push/pull" forces that produce movement : the "push" 

 force comes from the country of origin, the "pull" force from abroad. 

 Generally, structural maladjustment and inner disequilibrium in the 

 country of emigration or immigration, or both, activate these forces 

 and ultimately produce brain drain."* Specifically, the movement 

 occurs when maladjustments and disequilibria are manifested in a 

 nation's economic, cultural and intellectual, social and political 

 realms. 



"Pi^^" Factors in Brain Drain 



Examination of the "push" factors in brain drain fall naturally 

 into four major categories: The economic, cultural and intellectual, 

 social, and political. Each element contributes in its own special way 

 to "pushing" the discontented professional into migration. 



ECONOMIC factors: symptom of underdevelopment 



Brain drain, particularly as it relates to the LDCs, derives from 

 structural maladjustments in the economies of the developing coun- 

 tries. An undesirable byproduct of unbalanced national development, 

 brain drain has its root cause in the larger problems of economic 

 development. It is a symptom more than a cause of underdevelop- 

 ment. Briefly, brain drain can be a consequence of a forced march 

 from a starting point of underdevelopment to what is ultimately 

 expected to be a goal of economic modernity.""' 



225 



mismanagement of manpower; misconception of educational 



REFORM 



The basic problem of underdevelopment is compounded by mis- 

 management in manpower resources and a misconception of the pur- 

 pose of educational reform. Coming into the contemporary world from 

 a colonial heritage, most LDCs took on many of the values, attitudes, 



22' Hearings, House Government Operations Committee, Brain Drain, 1968, p. 54. (Adams 

 testimony) 



225 Ideas for this section are drawn from virtually all of the major sources on the brain 

 drain used In this study and cited In the previous chapters. Special attention Is directed to 

 the CIMT study, pp. 679-689 ; Adams and Dlrlam, op. clt., pp. 254-56 ; Henderson, op. clt., 

 pp. 87-94 ; Mylnt, op. clt., pp. 238-40 ; and Adam's testimony in Hearings, House Govern- 

 ment Operations Committee, Brain Drain, 1968, pp. 57-58. 



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