Long-drawn-out lines of citizens outside the foreign ministry toiling to bid farewell to the country, where basic facilities seem a luxury and where over 13.53 million nationals have officially bade farewell to their country to work in more than 50 countries by April 2024, according to the latest data revealed by the Pakistan Economic Survey, the situation seems alarming and concerning, making Pakistan second largest country in the South Asia in high emigration rates.
Such a situation is even more perturbing in a country like Pakistan where a humongous number of undeserving people are recruited on political basis just to garner political leverage, leaving citizens’ kismet on the brink of dismay and devastation.
Basically, the term brain drain refers to the situation in which a large number of educated and skilled people leave a country for better opportunities. The opposite term, brain gain. refers to the situation where such educated and skilled people are gained to facilitate the public of that country and advancement.
According to the Bureau of Emigration, the numbers of out-migration have reached a high level as the pandemic’s effect waned. The number surged to 862,000 in 2023 even more than the number of people who left in the previous year, that was even nearly triple the number of people who emigrated in 2021. Tragically, the people who left the country in 2022, included more than 92,000 graduates, and 350,000 trained workers. Most of them went to the Gulf States. The sorry tally of emigrating educated youth included 2,500 doctors, 6,500 accountants, 5,534 engineers, 18,000 associate electrical engineers, 2,000 computer experts, 2,600 agricultural experts, over 900 teachers, 12,000 computer operators, 1,600 nurses, and 21,517 technicians. Besides, unskilled workers comprised 213,000 drivers.
Each coming year aggravates the situation by multiplying the number of educated and skilled people to leave the country for better opportunities. In the case of highly skilled persons the situation is even worse, and the recently released data in the Pakistan Economic Survey 2023-2024 reveals that highly skilled persons in pursuit of employment increased to 45,687 in 2023 from 20,865 in 2022, marking a massive increase of 119 percent.
According to a survey conducted by Gallup Pakistan, two-thirds of Pakistan’s population, including doctors and other professionals, expressed the desire to seek opportunities overseas and almost half of these individuals had no intention of returning.
Two sets of factors play a significant role in the brain drain. The first ones are pull factors, defined as the factors that compel a person to leave his country in pursuit of better opportunities in another country. The second ones are push factors, defined as the factors that incentivize a person to leave his country to go there and pursue better opportunities.
Regretfully, Pakistan is infamous for its pull factors. A country with huge external debt, current account deficit, taxing salaried class for conferring privileged on political tycoons, tailoring budget deficit in almost all budgets presented in decades proves to be no less than an incarceration for the salaried class. So, they leave no stone unturned to figure out any opportunity to leave the country and move to any other country that can cure their grievances. In Pakistan, most individuals rush because of low wages as compare to high inflation that does not enable them to earn bread and observe basic facilities.
The brain drain negatively impacts those countries that do not desire to curb its root causes and tailor public-friendly policies, and which do not manage to cooperate with and design facilities for those people for remittances, business, and cultural connections. So, it depends upon the state to convert this hell-like situation into prosperity and progress.
Every coming year citizens are burdened with taxes, especially in essential utilities. Recently, high bills of electricity, due to additional taxes, have compelled people to sell their belongings and spend days and nights in hunger just to pay electricity bills. Regretfully, the taxes collected through these bills do not heal the wounds inflicted, and instead give additional wounds in the shape of other taxes, As a result, people find it easier to rush to other countries than to survive in Pakistan.
Besides, corruption and nepotism make it an even more herculean task for deserving people to excel. The ailment of corruption in almost every department creates hurdles in development projects, creating incentives, generating revenue to meet expenses, and generating more jobs. And nepotism adds insult to injury, as key positions are given to relatives or favourites. The same results in even more corruption, damaging the exchequer of the state, and creating unemployment, that further compels educated and highly skilled people to find opportunities in other states.
If a person manages all this, then concerns for security remain. Firstly, due to terror attacks, robbery, and snatching in many cities, people find it hazardous to travel in the late hours; in some cases, they do not even travel during the day. Secondly, people are not even socially secure. They do not have effective programmes that can help them sustain their children or themselves in old age. The institutions designed for mitigating poverty and assisting citizens financially do not provide the assistance they require for living a better life. Last but not least, health security is also one of the concerns which compel the citizens to migrate to another country to seek better opportunities. The shortage of doctors is contributing to this troubling condition which is the result of low wages and long hours of duty. The most worrisome is that, leaving a few hospitals patients choose private hospitals for better treatment that further burden their pockets, even making it more difficult for them to meet both ends.
That apart, political instability, unemployment, low standard of living, lack of updated education, low incentives for startups, and many other things are contributing to the brain drain. Developed countries invest in students to make them an asset for their country, while developing countries’ parents invest in their children as they can earn for their expenditure, and as a result, developing countries produce cheap labour rather than assets for their country. To this, developed countries make the most of the students in whom they invest. In consequence, those students add to the well-being of not only that particular family but also the entire nation. That makes a huge difference between the developed and developing countries.
On the contrary, developed countries incentivize with their push factors. They brain gain by luring those people by providing standard living, high wages, and all fundamental rights. Some developed countries even grant ten times higher wages to the emigrated skilled persons than the wages they used to get in their country. Lack of corruption and nepotism make it even easier for them to enhance their skills, earn more and more, and spend a fear-free life.
However, the brain drain can have positive impacts on the donor country. The donor country receives the remittances of those persons which result in more foreign currency to mitigate the current account deficit. Besides, the emigrants can create business and cultural connections with the host country that will result in a better international image and help in securing foreign investment, eventually creating job opportunities for locals, increasing revenue, cutting taxes, and more. Also, they can come back to their original country and spread their foreign knowledge and skills to local people to better equip them with modern knowledge and skills that will ultimately have a positive impact on the original country to compete in the international realm.
The brain drain negatively impacts those countries that do not desire to curb its root causes and tailor public-friendly policies, and which do not manage to cooperate with and design facilities for those people for remittances, business, and cultural connections. So, it depends upon the state to convert this hell-like situation into prosperity and progress.
