Beyond the Headlines. New Evidence on the Brain Drain

Since the end of the 1990s, issues related to international migration, and more particularly to the international mobility of highly-qualified workers, are receiving once again increasing attention from policy makers. Despite the fact that the brain drain debate is an old one, however, little in the way of solid data was available until recently to inform the discussions in this area. This paper describes a new data source on the foreign-born population in oecd countries, by country of birth and educational attainment, and provides a number of preliminary results from this database. Expatriation of the highly qualified is seen to be associated with small country size, insularity and a low incidence of persons with high attainment, suggesting that limited opportunities with respect to education and labour markets would appear to be important factors affecting the expatriation decision.