Let It Drain

Two articles published in Kompas September 4 discussing the Brain Drain issue and its cost to the society. Both articles argue that brain drain has direct negative impact for the originating country. The first author, although maintains that it means lost of capital, reasons that there’s a positive side of it namely the power of networking. The other, calls for the help from world bodies to stop the increasing trend.

We can simply deduce that financial motive is the main drive behind this matter. By my-own-often-too simplistic definition, brain drain happens when highly skilled workers decided to work abroad, outside the country where they first acquired their skill. The skill is almost certainly obtained through advanced education requiring considerable investment, financed by the workers themselves or by sponsor—most likely through state subsidized education.

So is it really a lost to one country when ‘their’ highly skilled workers move abroad? I think it’s not exactly the case.


What really happens is a simple demand-supply problem. All of us who’s been taught on economics 101 must have understood this underlying principal: when supply is abundant, much more than what market needs, price must go down… etc. until the equilibrium is reached. And what happen is reflecting the very fact: too much skilled workers can not be absorbed by local market because there’s not enough demand for them, hence they move to countries with higher demand for their skill.

To illustrate further, let’s assume a country producing too much nuclear engineers while the corresponding local market for this specific skill is limited (not necessarily commercial, research can be categorized as market too). The market reaction for this situation is the low ‘price’ for these skilled workers. ‘Price’ may not directly related to lower salary, as it can also take form in ‘hidden’ unemployment or suboptimal utilization of the skill. In the perfect market, through price as guidance, supply will eventually fall to adjust with the demand level. Thus, over the years those applying for nuclear study will steadily decline.

In true life, I’ve heard about this unconfirmed story on one bright nuclear scientist who had difficulties applying his skill in Indonesia after he finished his (state-sponsored) study abroad. Being pragmatic, he changed direction and went into business, and in due course he became a very successful entrepreneur. Nothing wrong with this (hey, even Einstein had to work as a government clerk before) but we can see that his potential is not fully realized.

Now in this situation, isn’t it better if he applying his skill in the field where he does best, in country where he most probably will fare better? At the end, society as a whole, the world, would reap the benefit. Imagine if given the right environment he can create a new technology that will help humankind solve their energy problem—something he surely can’t do here. If you think it will be a lost for our country that maybe correct, but if he doesn’t apply what he does best, both our country and the society as a whole will incur a lost.

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As you can see when market can’t perform its self-adjusting mechanism, the over supply situation will persist and therefore the brain drain will continue. Over investing by the government which cause the over supply situation, is actually distorting the market. But does it mean the government must stop investing in people?

Not necessarily, after all we don’t want to be left behind other nations. What needs to be done is just investing smartly, namely invest in the thing that will give the higher returns. So if the local market needs more computer programmers, invest in computer trainings. If there’s an only limited job opening in nuclear engineering, then don’t invest heavily in this field etc.

On the other hand you can theoretically control the market. Just make sure we create specific jobs for the highly skilled workers whom we have trained. Of course it needs a good planning and consistency in the execution—something we are lack of. Directly matching the would-be-available skills with non-existent jobs must be a very daunting task indeed.

The government can do simpler things. They can facilitate the investment process rather than wasting the tax payer money by directly investing. By intensifying student loan for instance, they can shift this burden to the potential workers.

Much simpler still: provide direction for the potential workers. Most of our high school students don’t have a full comprehension about the reality of the job market. They have vague images on what the ‘cool’ jobs are—doctors, pilots, architects etc (no, economist is not even in the ‘etc’)—but these are very limited information. If they have to invest 4-5 years of time and money, they really need to understand the pay back and how much they have to pay. Job counselling, career days, will give them a better picture, and much clearer direction to decide their career path.

So let’s not just blame it on the drain.

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