Is the medical brain drain beneficial? Evidence from overseas doctors in the UK

• Published in: Social science & medicine (1982) Vol. 65; no. 5; pp. 915 - 923
• Main Authors: Kangasniemi, Mari, Winters, L. Alan, Commander, Simon
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01.09.2007; Elsevier; Pergamon Press Inc
• Series: Social Science & Medicine
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Brain Drain; Data Collection; Doctors; Emigration and Immigration; Evidence-Based Medicine; Foreign Medical Graduates; Health participants; Humans; International labour market; International labour migration; International market; International migration; Labor market; Labor Migration; Labour market; Medical education; Medical sciences; Migration; Miscellaneous; Motivation; Physicians; Physicians - supply & distribution; Public health. Hygiene; Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine; Return Migration; Social sciences; UK Migration Brain drain International labour market Doctors; United Kingdom; United Kingdom; Europe; United Kingdom > UK; International labour market; Brain drain; UK; Migration; Doctors; Human; Health staff; Labour market; Physician; Social medicine; International market; Public health
• ISSN: 0277-9536; 1873-5347
• DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2007.04.021

The ‘beneficial brain drain’ hypothesis suggests that skilled migration can be good for a sending country because the incentives it creates for obtaining training increase that country's net supply of skilled labour. Necessary conditions for this hypothesis to work are that the possibility of migration significantly affects decisions to take medical training and that migrants are not strongly screened by the host country. We conducted a survey among overseas doctors in the UK in 2002, which suggested that neither condition is likely to be fulfilled. Apart from the ‘beneficial brain drain’ argument, the survey findings also cast light on the backgrounds and motives of migrant doctors, and finds evidence that there could, nonetheless, be other benefits to sending countries via routes like remittances and return migration.