1178 



ably have two real options: either to adjust his career plans so that 

 he would have a marketable profession (for example, engineering, 

 agronomy, or some other career essential for nation-building), or to 

 leave the urban centei-s and practice in the countryside where medical 

 need is great and where he can fulfill his career expectations as a 

 doctor. 



(In recent years such a shift in career plans has occurred in the 

 American professional manpower market. With the decline in de- 

 mand for engineers, many engineering students and graduates shifted 

 to the medical field where demands and needs were greater and career 

 prospects brighter. Many unemployed space scientists and engineers 

 have also been "retooled" for other careers.) 



In this way, therefore, reduction of "pull" factors in the receiving 

 country can act as a positive influence on the labor market in the 

 sending LDC : It can contribute to reducing brain drain and to aiding 

 long-term development, at least potentially, by closing off opportuni- 

 ties in the advanced country and by compelling acceptance of a new 

 reality, a new set of options within the LDC. 



What ultimately makes the need-demand issue significant in con- 

 siderations on brain drain is that the issue exposes the riddle of devel- 

 opment, namely, how to create an effective demand in the LDCs that 

 in turn will stimulate sufficient creative forces to satisfy the nation's 

 needs, for, in circular fashion, the needs of society are satisfied only 

 by creating demands, and demands are created by raising the level 

 of development. 



Efforts of Brian Drain Within the LDCs : Gains and Benefits From an 

 Educated Elite 

 Returning foreign students and scholars of the LDCs' trained in the 

 LTnited States and other advanced countries of the AVest, have con- 

 tributed a great deal to the development of their countries. In accent- 

 ing the positive values of talent migration, some American observers 

 have gone so far as to deny any serious negative effects, and to assert 

 that the study of foreign students in the LTnited States even contrib- 

 utes to a diminution of brain drain.*°° Despite increasing emigration, 

 the foreign educated have also been increasingly returning home, and 

 accordingly have aided the flow of knowledge, techniques, science, and 



<"^ Dr. Frankol pointed out that In fiscal yoar 1966 only one-Rlxth of the total of sklllpd 

 persons who immigrated — 30,039 — were temporary visitors (students, exchanges, etc.) who 

 had adjusted their status to that of Immigrants. And he added : "Indeed, study by for- 

 eigners in this country, far from increasing the 'brain drain,' probably contributes to its 

 diminution. The overwhelming number of the people who are trained here return home to 

 help the development of their own countries. They thus help to alleviate the conditions 

 that are the fundamental reasons for emigration from their countries." (Hearings, Senate 

 Judiciary Committee, International Migration of Talent and Skills, 1968, p. 14.) 



Under Secretary of State Rostow stated with regard to the increase in immigrants from 

 Asia : ". . . there" Is no evidence . . . that such increases have been dramatic, or that the 

 number of students, scientists, scholars, and other professional men who come as visitors, 

 and are given permission to remain as permanent Immigrants is causing a significant drain 

 of talents and skills to the United States from other countries." He went on to explain 

 further: "It is questionable, in any event, whether visitors from other countries form a 

 significant part of whatever 'brain drain' to the United States there may be. . . . Most of 

 the men and women trained here, sooner or later, return to their homes to take a leading 

 part in building strong Institutions there. They have a much better knowledge, a more 

 intimate knowledge of the United States than most of their countrymen, and most of them 

 remain for the rest of their lives among our best friends abroad. Their experience here 

 as students or as workers in one or another of our intellectual industries makes a vital 

 contribution to every aspect of the development of their own countries." (Ibid., p. 5.) 



