The movement and migration of people and countries, across or even within national borders, also known as migration, is as old as humanity. In today's globalized world, people are constantly on the move, international migrants number Between 2000 and 2019, the number rose from 150 million to 272 million. In our study, we specifically address the migration of highly educated people, and we do not address other categories of migration (about individual types of migration itt can read). Each phenomenon, including educated migration, has many aspects: there are both advantages and disadvantages from the point of view of the individual, society and the sending and receiving economies. We compared these in our study (In this We asked for help Philippe Legrain 2006: Big Ban, Migrants: Your Country Needs Them [magyarul: Bevándorlók: az országodnak szüksége van rájuk] His book too).
Advantages of immigration of people with higher education – without claiming completion:
- The workforce coming from abroad may have different – or even better – skills and experience than the local workforce;
- Knowledge of the sending country, and the possibilities of establishing easier relations between sending and receiving countries, which reduces international transaction costs;
- Global diaspora can create networks that encourage trade, investment, and the diffusion of knowledge and technology;
- Talented foreigners can foster innovation in the host country;
- In industries where companies are grouped in one place (so-called clusters are formed), there are significant benefits if companies tap into the widest possible global pool of talented employees;
- High-skilled migrants tend to earn more income than low-skilled migrants, and are therefore likely to send more money home;
- Migrant professionals can also return to their home country, bringing with them new skills and ideas acquired abroad;
- The opportunity to work abroad and earn higher wages could also encourage more people in less developed countries to gain a qualification – and not all of them end up emigrating. This can stimulate human resources in a particular country.
Costs of highly educated migration – without claiming completeness:
- The “brain drain” hinders development and economic growth in the sending country by reducing human capital;
- Talented and enterprising people create employment and prosperity for themselves and other members of society, and their migration not only deprives their country of their skills and experience, but also deprives them of these positive effects.
- If all highly skilled workers move to clusters in rich countries, poor countries become less likely to form clusters of their own;
- The migration of a large number of highly qualified people may increase labor shortages in the sending country in key fields (e.g. doctors, engineers);
- Governments suffer financial loss (e.g. loss of personal income tax paid, various contributions) due to the departure of the country's best-paid professionals, especially if they previously supported their education at the local level;
- The country's political, judicial and administrative system may also face difficulties if too many qualified people leave;
- “Brain drain” increases the technological gap between more developed and less developed countries.
Studying the global brain drain, in 2022, more than 1.9 million residence permits were issued for the first time to international higher education students in OECD countries, while in 2021 4.3 million international students studied within the framework of higher education in OECD countries, Of them, 49 percent (2.1 million) are in a European OECD country. Most international students in OECD countries come from Asia (China, India, Vietnam). Hungary ranked ninth in the OECD rankings in 2021, and 13 percent of higher education students are international students, including 21 percent of master’s students and 28 percent of doctoral students.
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)2020), the migration rate of highly educated people is higher in most countries than the total migration rate (2015/2016 data). This difference is most evident in the poorest countries of origin, where the rate of migration of people with low education is very low. On the other hand, in the case of the highly educated, there is a negative relationship between the immigration rate and GDP per capita in the countries of origin: the richer the country (higher GDP per capita), the lower immigration. an average.
2023 by the non-profit organization Peace Fund a report According to Hungary, it ranks well in the 2023 rankings, ranking 132nd out of 179 countries examined, which means that Hungarian human capital “exodus” is low on a global level.
Moving from global to European level data, and recent migration To the dataAccording to Eurostat (2023), in 2022 French (67.8 percent), Irish (63.9 percent), Finns (62.8 percent), Germans (58.9 percent), Belgians (56.8 percent), Danes (52.3 percent). ) Austrians (50.9 percent) had the highest proportion of immigrants with higher education, and more than half of the immigrants were highly educated (for the Dutch, this rate was 50 percent). In contrast, only 15.8% of Romanian immigrants had higher education, while 16.8% of Portuguese immigrants had higher education in 2022. The percentage of immigrants from Hungary was made up of people with higher education in 2022, and in Poland this percentage was 30 percent , but it was higher in the Czech Republic, 46.2 percent.
51.3 percent of migrants aged 15-64 from non-EU countries living in Hungary have a high level of education king In 2022, that is, brain gain has been achieved to some extent in our country. This was the fourth highest value within the European Union last year, after Ireland, Luxembourg and Lithuania.
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