Emigration, Brain Drain, And Development: The Case of Sub-Saharan Africa

by Arno Tanner

What happens to the health care system in Malawi when a large portion of Malawian physicians immigrate to Britain? Does the migration of highly skilled professionals from developing and underdeveloped countries to developed countries harm or hurt their country of origin?In Emigration, Brain Drain, and The Case of Sub-Saharan Africa, Arno Tanner questions the emerging literature that stresses the positive aspects of labor migration. He finds that while emigration certainly cannot be stopped, and may be beneficial in some cases, unhindered high-skilled emigration ?particularly in the case of sub-Saharan Africa ?can have disastrous consequences. In examining the cases of Malawi, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe, Tanner finds striking trends. For instance, the outflow of physicians from Malawi may severely hurt AIDS prevention. Furthermore, sub-Saharan Africans tend not to return; remittances are erratic, have dwindled over time, and do not offset the costs of emigration. Tanner recommends specific policies where carefully targeted development measures could be used to mitigate the negative consequences of brain drain.

183 pages, Paperback

First published March 21, 2006

Reviews

[Marcie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Am reading this and Give Us Your Best and Brightest for a reading group class at school; the topic this year is brain drain (specifically of health workers, from the developing world to industrialized nations). I'm really excited to read some of this material and try to figure out some solutions to the problem of health care providers hemorrhaging out of the areas where they are needed most.

[Dacia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fine and clear overview on the silent death of African middle class, through brain drain. This is a forgotten fact, ongoing continuosly despite the aftermath of the downturn.

Dacia, Bucarest