IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v64y2007i6p1278-1284.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why are you draining your brain? Factors underlying decisions of graduating Lebanese medical students to migrate

Author

Listed:
  • Akl, Elie A.
  • Maroun, Nancy
  • Major, Stella
  • Afif, Claude
  • Chahoud, Bechara
  • Choucair, Jacques
  • Sakr, Mazen
  • Schünemann, Holger J.

Abstract

In the context of a worldwide physician brain drain phenomenon, Lebanon has the highest emigration factor in the Middle East and North Africa. In this manuscript we aim to identify and develop a conceptual framework for the factors underlying the decisions of graduating Lebanese medical students to train abroad. We conducted two focus groups and seven semi-structured individual interviews with 23 students. In the deductive analysis (based on the push-pull theory), students reported push factors in Lebanon and pull factors abroad related to five dimensions. They focused predominantly on how training abroad provides them with a competitive advantage in an oversaturated Lebanese job market. An inductive analysis revealed the following emerging concepts: repel factors abroad and retain factors locally; societal expectations that students should train abroad; marketing of abroad training; and an established culture of migration. The marketing of abroad training and the culture of migration are prevalent in the academic institutions.

Suggested Citation

  • Akl, Elie A. & Maroun, Nancy & Major, Stella & Afif, Claude & Chahoud, Bechara & Choucair, Jacques & Sakr, Mazen & Schünemann, Holger J., 2007. "Why are you draining your brain? Factors underlying decisions of graduating Lebanese medical students to migrate," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(6), pages 1278-1284, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:64:y:2007:i:6:p:1278-1284
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(06)00544-2
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Everett Lee, 1966. "A theory of migration," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 3(1), pages 47-57, March.
    2. Hagopian, Amy & Ofosu, Anthony & Fatusi, Adesegun & Biritwum, Richard & Essel, Ama & Gary Hart, L. & Watts, Carolyn, 2005. "The flight of physicians from West Africa: Views of African physicians and implications for policy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(8), pages 1750-1760, October.
    3. Brown, Richard P. C. & Connell, John, 2004. "The migration of doctors and nurses from South Pacific Island Nations," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(11), pages 2193-2210, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Masselink, Leah E. & Lee, Shoou-Yih Daniel, 2010. "Nurses, Inc.: Expansion and commercialization of nursing education in the Philippines," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 166-172, July.
    2. Lena Dohlman & Matthew DiMeglio & Jihane Hajj & Krzysztof Laudanski, 2019. "Global Brain Drain: How Can the Maslow Theory of Motivation Improve Our Understanding of Physician Migration?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-13, April.
    3. Connell, John, 2014. "The two cultures of health worker migration: A Pacific perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 73-81.
    4. Hussey, Peter S., 2007. "International migration patterns of physicians to the United States: A cross-national panel analysis," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(2-3), pages 298-307, December.
    5. Blacklock, C. & Ward, A.M. & Heneghan, C. & Thompson, M., 2014. "Exploring the migration decisions of health workers and trainees from Africa: A meta-ethnographic synthesis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 99-106.
    6. Evgenia Anastasiou & Georgia Anagnostou & George Theodossiou & Vasileios Papamargaritis, 2020. "Physicians' Brain Drain: Investigating the Determinants to Emigrate Through Empirical Evidence," International Journal of Business and Economic Sciences Applied Research (IJBESAR), Democritus University of Thrace (DUTH), Kavala Campus, Greece, vol. 13(2), pages 83-92, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Connell, John, 2014. "The two cultures of health worker migration: A Pacific perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 73-81.
    2. Jan-Jan Soon, 2008. "The determinants of international students' return intention," Working Papers 0806, University of Otago, Department of Economics, revised Jul 2008.
    3. Blacklock, C. & Ward, A.M. & Heneghan, C. & Thompson, M., 2014. "Exploring the migration decisions of health workers and trainees from Africa: A meta-ethnographic synthesis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 99-106.
    4. Laila Touhami Morghem & Khawlah Ali Abdalla Spetan, 2020. "Determinants of International Migration: An Applied Study on Selected Arab Countries (1995-2017)," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 10(2), pages 6-19.
    5. Ning Xu & Chang’an Li, 2023. "Migration and Rural Sustainability: Relative Poverty Alleviation by Geographical Mobility in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-27, April.
    6. Karina Acosta & Hengyu Gu, 2022. "Locked up? The development and internal migration nexus in Colombia," Documentos de Trabajo Sobre Economía Regional y Urbana 19931, Banco de la República, Economía Regional.
    7. Dreher, Axel & Fuchs, Andreas & Langlotz, Sarah, 2019. "The effects of foreign aid on refugee flows," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 127-147.
    8. Vakulenko, Elena, 2019. "Motives for internal migration in Russia: what has changed in recent years?," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 55, pages 113-138.
    9. Innocent A. Nwosu & Mary J. Eteng & Joseph Ekpechu & Macpherson U. Nnam & Jonathan A. Ukah & Emmanuel Eyisi & Emmanuel C. Orakwe, 2022. "Poverty and Youth Migration Out of Nigeria: Enthronement of Modern Slavery," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(1), pages 21582440221, February.
    10. Irene Alfarone & Ugo Merlone, 2024. "Should I stay or should I go: A dynamical model of musicians’ agglomeration and migration," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 97-116, February.
    11. R. A. Dolzhenko & S. V. Lobova, 2021. "Factors of Youth Migration Behavior. Case Studies of the Siberian Federal District and Altai Krai," Regional Research of Russia, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 40-47, January.
    12. Nong Zhu & Heng-fu Zou, 2006. "Services for Urban Floating Population in China," CEMA Working Papers 562, China Economics and Management Academy, Central University of Finance and Economics.
    13. Xiaoyan Mu & Anthony Gar-On Yeh & Xiaohu Zhang & Jiejing Wang & Jian Lin, 2022. "Moving down the urban hierarchy: Turning point of China’s internal migration caused by age structure and hukou system," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(7), pages 1389-1405, May.
    14. Auer Daniel & Römer Friederike & Tjaden Jasper, 2020. "Corruption and the Desire to Leave Quasi-Experimental Evidence on Corruption as a Driver of Emigration Intentions," IZA Journal of Development and Migration, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 11(1), pages 1-31, January.
    15. Pitukhina, Maria & Tolstoguzov, Oleg & Belykh, Anastasia, 2022. "Арктические Местные Сообщества И Зарубежная Трудовая Миграция В Российской Арктике [Arctic local communities and foreign labour migration in Russian arctic]," MPRA Paper 115159, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Helmenstein, Christian & Yegorov, Yury, 2000. "The dynamics of migration in the presence of chains," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 307-323, February.
    17. Muir, Jonathan A. & Cope, Michael R. & Angeningsih, Leslie R. & Jackson, Jorden & Brown, Ralph B., 2019. "Migration and Mental Health in the Aftermath of Disaster: Evidence from Mt. Merapi, Indonesia," OSF Preprints 2u6dg, Center for Open Science.
    18. Rachel Jenkins & Robert Kydd & Paul Mullen & Kenneth Thomson & James Sculley & Susan Kuper & Joanna Carroll & Oye Gureje & Simon Hatcher & Sharon Brownie & Christopher Carroll & Sheila Hollins & Mai L, 2010. "International Migration of Doctors, and Its Impact on Availability of Psychiatrists in Low and Middle Income Countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(2), pages 1-9, February.
    19. Douglas Gurak & Mary M. Kritz, 2016. "Pioneer settlement of U.S. immigrants," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 34(25), pages 705-740.
    20. Mauro Lanati & Rainer Thiele, 2024. "South‐south refugee movements: Do pull factors play a role?," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(2), pages 928-958, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:64:y:2007:i:6:p:1278-1284. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.