Brain Drain or Brain Gain?

Brain Drain refers to the emigration of highly skilled or well-educated individuals for better pay or conditions, causing their places of origin to lose those skills and expertise (source). It’s been a problem for many different countries through the years. Think about India or other countries that lose great numbers of scientists each year, mainly to the US. You can look for videos related to these countries to see what happens. In any case, Brain Drain is a term I don’t like that much. I haven’t liked it since it started surfacing on the Greek media as a symptom of the crisis, etc. First things first, how do you call the emigration of highly skilled builders for better pay conditions? Is this a “Muscle Drain”? So, the term is kind of inherently offensive to the ones that emigrate to pursue more labor-intensive professions, isn’t it? Or is it only the knowledge workers that represent assets to an economy? I guess not.

On the other hand, using the term Brain Drain, kind of makes me feel like I am part of the stupid that have stayed behind. This is not really a problem of the term itself, as it’s a problem in its use by the local media. It’s usually assumed that only the bright ones leave the country, leaving back a pile of useless professionals that are somehow reluctant or cowardly to leave. On the other hand, you have some of the people that talk about Brain Drain, also advocating the openness of the European Union and the globalization of markets, professions, etc. I mean, what did you expect? Is it like the world is an open place, with an enormous labour market, but no one is allowed to access it? Is it like “we opened the door for you, but please, stay inside”..?

Rest of the post here