Brain drain is the informal terminology used to describe human capital flight or loss of highly skilled or educated individuals from a particular geographic region, organization or industry.
Brain drain is considered a social and economic problem because it leaves an area with low skilled and uneducated workforce.
One of the main reasons that highly skilled and educated people decide to leave their place of birth has to do with the less desirable living conditions there. They leave due to high unemployment rates, economic crisis, low average salary, political instability, human rights abuses and lack of personal freedom.
These factors are considered push factors because they effectively push people out of their homes, forcing them to look for better opportunities elsewhere.
The effects of brain drain can be positive and negative depending on the economic and social situations of both the sending and receiving countries or regions. Sending regions suffer majority of the negative effects of brain drain. When people leave their jobs in search of economic opportunities elsewhere, the tax revenue they once paid is lost. This loss in income can disrupt public budgeting and lead to a decline in the quality of public services.
In the past two decades there has been a continuous outflow of Indians, except during the 2008 financial crisis and in 2020-2021 due to Covid 19 related travel bans. India has become a major exporter of healthcare workers to developed nations. Hence, there is a large scale migration of health workers from India.
India needs systematic changes to build an overall environment that would be beneficial for the talented enough to motivate them to stay in the country.