Dr. Keith Nurse, director of The Shridath Ramphal Centre for International Trade Law, Policy and Services in Barbados.
‘Brain drain’ linked to socio-economic level
11/12/2008
By Shawn Cumberbatch
BARBADOS’ sound socio-economic position is one reason why the island is safe from a mass exodus of professionals to some of the world’s developed countries, which are now importing labour.
While some local professionals – including nurses and teachers – have continued seeking employment overseas in recent years, a leading trade expert has said indications suggest most skilled Barbadians would remain at home to work.
This view was explored yesterday by Dr. Keith Nurse, director of The Shridath Ramphal Centre for International Trade Law, Policy and Services, based at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus.
He was one of three academics who examined various aspects of the broad theme “Diaspora, Brain Drain and Caribbean Development, when the Caribbean Development Bank held a special discussion forum in the conference centre at its Wildey, St. Michael headquarters.
“In many respects what we are seeing are two specific global imbalances which migration is participating in. The first is the widening socio economic, which is that there is a widening income gap between the north and the south. And it is this that is largely fuelling the migration process. Why? Because you could almost predict it: the poorer the economy the higher the level of migration,” Nurse said during his presentation on the topic “Is the Diasporic Economy a Solution For Caribbean Development?”.
“So one of my students was asking me ‘well what about places like Barbados?’. Well Barbados’ low migration relative to the rest of the Caribbean is because of socio economic position. So the more depressed the economy at home the higher the level of migration and all the associated flows remittances, brain drain and so forth,” he added.
The director pointed out that up until now most discussion on migration in the Caribbean focussed almost exclusively on remittances, with many Caribbean countries benefitting from the millions of dollars sent back home by their nationals working overseas. He felt there was a need to widen discussion on such issues.
“If you look at the literature probably about 90 per cent of the literature on migration, particularly as it relates to the Caribbean, is on remittances. In some respects I think it has to do with who is commissioning the research. The diasporic economy is a far broader construct,” he stated.
Nurse pointed out the relationship between immigration and development was “the key question that we have to ask”.
“In the north, in the developed countries, or the overly developed countries if you want to call them that, they are faced with a looming generational crisis, which is that labour reproduction is at an all time...low and so there is an increased demand for labour, particularly skilled labour. And so in spite of all of the criticisms about immigration, or the way which immigration is featured in political elections and so forth, the countries in the north require the importation of labour,” he stated.
“If you look at what is happening in Germany and several other parts of Europe, the number of children that are being born is quite low, we now have villages where there are only old people and all kinds of things happening. There are lots of different types of policy instruments being used throughout the world”.
He also suggested that “this notion that we have had (about) national development, which is the construct we have been using over the years, is actually now very much dead”.
