1252 



mental changes in the professional manpower market, braking the 

 in-bound brain drain and in some instances even reversing it.*^^^ 



Social, political, and cultural factors have also entered into the de- 

 cision of some scientists and engineers to return home from the United 

 States. Sources revealed that returnees were going only to Europe 

 and not to the LDCs. These motivating perceptions can be summed 

 up briefly : dissatisfaction with American culture and the European's 

 sense of cultural isolatipn in what they perceive to be a highly ma- 

 terialistic country; social upheaval in the Nation and unsettled con- 

 ditions in the universities; what some describe as the "brutalizing" 

 aspects of American urban life; threat of the draft when conscription 

 was possible ; improved conditions in Europe, particularly in some of 

 the West German universities; disenchantment with the American 

 political environment ; and for American Jews, a deep sense of ideal- 

 ism attracting them to Israel.*^^^ 



fmg's, an exception to the general trend 



Although reduction and reversal of brain drain in the last 2 fiscal 

 3'ears occurred among scientists and engineers, no such reverse occurred 

 among physicians and surgeons. Their numbers increased, and the 

 future inflow seems assured for some time to come. 



The ''push/pull" factors operate at maximum efficiency in the case 

 of medical brain drain. This is the reason why FMGs flow into the 

 United States in ever-increasing numbers. In the LDCs, the prime 

 source of medical emigrants, the "push" of oversupply and underde- 

 mand (as distinct from need), along with the other causal factors de- 

 scribed above, provides continuing momentum for medical migration 

 to the United States. In the United States as the prime goal of medical 

 inmiigrants, 1 he "pull" of the asserted doctor shortage is attributed to 

 failure to build sufficient American medical schools to meet the growing 

 demand for doctors in the Nation's expanding health services and to 



*^ In an essay on American education. Time made the" following observations on future 

 problems of underenij)lo.vment : "The shape of the economy today argues in less theoretical 

 terms for an open-minded attitude toward learning such skills as welding and carpentry 

 instead of, or along with, philosophy and history. The Bureau of Labor Statistics i:as 

 fwtiniated that only 20% of the jobs in t'le 1970s will require education beyond high 

 sclio'il. Yet the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education forecast last week that two- 

 thirds of America's high school graduates will be continuing their schooling. Already, 

 according to the commission, nearly 30 9c of male graduates of 4-year colleges are in 

 bliip-collar, sales and clerical jobs. There seems likely to be even more serious under- 

 employment of talent in tlie future. In fact, the U.S. Department of Health, Education 

 and Welfare projects that over the next decade an average of 2^i people will be com- 

 peting for everv job that actuailv requires a college education." f'Second Thoughts About 

 V.nn — III: What the Schools Cannot Do," Time (Apr. 16. 1973). p. 80.) 



*-^ A British scientist gave as a renson : "We didn't want our children to grow up in 

 the violent American atmosphere"; (Business Week, Oct. 10, 1970). A West German pro- 

 fessor was returning because he now believed reform was possible ; a zoologist returned 

 after 7 years residence in the TJnited States because "the working conditions are better 

 here" ; a tenured professor was going to the University of Munich because "my offer . . . 

 was excellent in all respects including salary" ; a professor of medicine returned because, 

 "Life in America is hard" ; returnees do not want "to expose their children to the brutaliz- 

 ing conditions of life in large American cities, and they are tired of hearing their wives 

 complain about being isolated. in the culturally destitute small towns and suburbs"; the 

 "big complaint . . . was the growing paucity of research. funds" ; Der Spiegel concludes: 

 'jThis bleak picture of the Americrm situation is no exaggeratioj. J^he Cooperative College 



'^ ■ ' " ... - - ^^^ 



sor 

 ibt 



_ _ that 



-draws people here." (The New York Times, Feb. 28, 1972, p. 2.) 



