Stopping the Brain Drain
Brain drain is treated much like a natural disaster in Northern Ireland. We view it as an inevitability which must be reacted to rather than stopped at the source. This may be due to the fact that Northern Ireland can look extremely small in the face of the global mechanics which allows the brain drain to occur but I would disagree. There are measures which have been taken by other countries to combat the issue and there are ideas which have been put forward that could apply well to a Northern Irish set of circumstances. It would take some imagination to see this achieved but this is a website where we would like to imagine better things for Northern Ireland than we currently see, so this article will try to be optimistic in its conclusions.
Before that, let us address the issue we are concentrating on. The concept of ‘brain drain’ has been an established idea for over forty years, with one of its major examples being the exodus of young doctors from India to the West decades ago. The general idea of brain drain at that time was that one country would educate its young people so they could improve the current system but instead, those educated young people would move abroad to a place where they could attain better wages, a better life and find greater opportunities. Those ‘source’ countries had made massive investments into those young people but never got to see any of the profits from that original investment. However, in the modern world globalization is not as simple as it was decades ago, the brain drain is probably not quite as one way as it once was. There is slightly more give and take in the brain drain with those leaving having a greater possibility of moving back with a higher skill level, as well as a greater percentage of the population gets highly educated and those who do leave being replaced by migrants from other places (depending on where your country lies in the ladder of global desirability).
Northern Ireland finds itself being a part of one of the largest economies in Europe but they are a poorly functioning part of that economy. So the question could be asked how bad the brain drain is for Northern Ireland. In truth, it is an issue which can look minor when compared to the emerging economies in the world but the drain certainly still exists to a lesser degree. According to NISRA, only three of Northern Ireland’s constituencies were able to see substantial net growth in migration between 2009 and 2019, those being Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon (+9,000 migrants), Mid Ulster (+5,000 migrants) and Newry, Mourne and Down (+4,000 migrants). Outside of those three areas, all areas either saw meager growth or net loss in migration when taking into account internal UK movement.
Those who do leave, appear to be young with many being between the ages of 18 to 25 which is a fairly unsurprising revelation. Another unsurprising revelation is that the countries these young people generally head towards are English speaking, with the GB being the largest recipient of Northern Irish talent, while the Republic follows behind receiving a smaller, but still substantial, number of NI migrants. This all fits into our idea of the brain drain occurring in Northern Ireland. To make matters worse, Brexit will most likely see a reduction in EU migration, which would result in NI losing out on a decent number of workers. In 2019, NI saw 5,000 people migrate from non-ROI EU countries, generally young workers ready to contribute to the Northern’s labour force. Additionally, COVID-19 has left us with a possible financial crisis to deal with. During the previous financial crisis in 2008, we saw a noticeable decrease in net migration in Northern Ireland, with many leaving to find better opportunities elsewhere. We can assume history will most likely repeat itself with those new graduates from NI universities attempting to find work in better developed regions of the world during a financial downturn.
Before looking at some possible solutions to the issue, it should be pointed out that all of the research done on the ‘brain drain’ highlights that a closed economy does not help the issue. Creating an isolationist economy will generally see your own workforce’s skill decrease while your information networks disintegrate leaving you lagging behind internationally. This kind of lag in a world globalising and progressing at incomparable historical rates would be far more damaging than any brain drain.
On the contrary, one of the best ways to address the brain drain can be to actively increase your net migration levels. Examples of this can be found in Australia and Canada who both use a similar model focusing on education-based migration. If a migrant has a degree in an area which Canada or Australia have a lack of expertise then it becomes extremely easy to receive a work permit or VISA to enter those countries. There is another similar model to this which focuses on allowing in migrants based on work experience that the said country values. These systems do require your country to have a pre-established quality of life and wage level which makes it attractive. For Northern Ireland, this system would be difficult to implement with its closest neighbours having better wage levels and better international reputations. An expensive targeted marketing campaign would need to accompany this policy but this is far easier to do today with social media allowing for international marketing to be accessible to all.
A number of countries have also attempted to install a mandatory service for some graduates, many focused on healthcare specialists, to prevent an instant brain drain post-graduation. Some of these countries include the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam who enforce a pre-defined number of years of service in public healthcare before allowing them to leave, providing some level of support for local healthcare. Thailand's system additionally provides a USD$250 monthly incentive to work in public rather than private healthcare while China has simply placed restrictions on the private healthcare sector from recruiting new graduates. These are slightly harsh methods for NI to implement but creating incentive based job offers could prove both publicly acceptable and politically possible, especially in healthcare where nurses are underpaid and understaffed.
One of the more interesting methods of brain drain prevention is the bhagwati tax which suggests a tax on highly skilled workers received by their home nation while the skilled worker lives abroad. While this is an interesting concept and would certainly address brain drain issues, it would also be a discriminatory tax that would see some countries profit from refugees fleeing dangerous circumstances. If implemented, the law would most likely need to be overseen by an international authority and specify conditions around the workers movement which prevents predatory regimes from profiting from forcing citizens out of their country. It is an unrealistic policy for Northern Ireland and, personally, a massively restrictive tax that would restrict the liberty of the individual.
However, that argument does have a possible solution in its idea of an international body which looks after international migration numbers. This body could coordinate better relations between countries diplomatically and create an environment where the brain drain becomes a more beneficial mechanism for both sides with better recognition for ‘source’ nations by ‘receiver’ nations through some form of compensation, especially in situations where healthcare is involved. This is certainly a pie-in-the-sky ambition but it could become a function of the UN, who already have the cooperation of most developed nations under its umbrella.
One of the ideas not mentioned above but which I did find interesting was the possibility of making short terms VISAs more accessible while making long term VISAs more difficult to attain. This would possibly create a situation where graduates would leave for a number of months to work abroad and then come back to Northern Ireland with an even better set of skills than when they left. While this would not be possible to implement on inter-UK and ROI migration, it could decrease the amount of permanent migration abroad.
Personally, Australia and Canada’s model is most appealing for Northern Ireland if there were a competent marketing campaign that followed its implementation. Most of the other ideas have their flaws but the other which stands out is the incentive based job offers. With InvestNI receiving £100 million a year to invest in business and create jobs, one of the best ways of tackling brain drain might be to create a direct link between the graduation process and the grants process of InvestNI. If InvestNI were to give grants dependent on local graduates receiving the jobs and being paid a better wage then we might be able to hold onto more essential skills through targeted investment. Additionally, a slightly underhanded, yet effective, method which removes the issues with the Bhagwati tax would be to instead increase university loan repayments and lower the university loan repayment threshold for those who move abroad.
These solutions are probably highly unlikely to be implemented, especially due to Northern Ireland’s devolved governmental status. Yet they create a good starting point for discussion which could lead to more realistic solutions to an issue which has harmed many post-conflict societies. The brain drain may be a function of globalisation but that does not mean that it is an evitable burden which lesser nations must be shackled to simply due the fact that it benefits those already in surplus. For NI to become a more active player on a UK or All island economic basis it needs to keep its brightest and best to improve the already established job market sectors and to create new opportunities.
