Beware The Reverse Brain Drain To India And China
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Beware The Reverse Brain Drain To India And China
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Re: Beware The Reverse Brain Drain To India And China
#2"When we asked what was better about the U.S. than home, 54% of Indian and 43% of Chinese said that total financial compensation for their previous U.S. positions was better than at home. Health-care benefits were also considered somewhat better in the United States by 51 percent of Chinese respondents, versus 21 percent who thought it was better in their home country. (Indian respondents were split more evenly on this)."
The article goes on to note that since returnees were surveyed, the survey results necessarily are biased toward the opinions of persons who thought going back to their native country had better trade-offs than staying in the United States. Did the survey not have any questions about national governance, democracy, or pervasive social problems in each country? Do such high-tech workers (the ones who return to the native countries or the ones who stay abroad) have no opinions on such issues?
I'll note that I don't think one would call this phenomenon a "reverse brain drain" unless people like me who grew up in the United States and who have lived abroad previously decide in large numbers to settle abroad permanently. The United States still enjoys net inward migration, and many tens of thousands of the immigrants who arrive to live permanently in the United States are still highly capable workers who could live nearly anywhere in the world if they so chose.
Re: Beware The Reverse Brain Drain To India And China
#3And I noticed that India tops the Google trends for both startups and hackernews.
Re: Beware The Reverse Brain Drain To India And China
#4How many planned to return to India? I was shocked to see more than three-quarters of the audience raise their hands.
Does this mean permanently? It could mean for vacation.
Re: Beware The Reverse Brain Drain To India And China
#5How many planned to return to India? I was shocked to see more than three-quarters of the audience raise their hands. Does this mean permanently? It could mean for vacation.
In the context of immigrants, it means permanently. When you talked to any non-U.S born Indians, Chinese, "Return to India/China" means permanently; "Vacation in India/China" means temporary.
Re: Beware The Reverse Brain Drain To India And China
#6"When we asked what was better about the U.S. than home, 54% of Indian and 43% of Chinese said that total financial compensation for their previous U.S. positions was better than at home. Health-care benefits were also considered somewhat better in the United States by 51 percent of Chinese respondents, versus 21 percent who thought it was better in their home country. (Indian respondents were split more evenly on th…
To some degrees, U.S. administrations after 9/11 act closer to administrations in India and China on issues on governance and immigrations. Besides, when a person grew up in an environment that stresses making money fast and first, ignoring and exploiting government corruptions, those advantages of U.S. democracy doesn't matter much to them.
Most of the Chinese and Indians "brains" in U.S are from families with privileges. Although paychecks are fatter in U.S for them, they have better social networks/relationships inherited from parents to exploit opportunities in booming China and India economies.
Globalization has been enabling higher growth in GDP in India/China than U.S. Let's imagine that you are in an economy that grows at 10% per year and you are born in the class with privileges, power and social network. It means the chance to double your assets in 3 to 5 years is very possible as long as you know whom to make deals.
Re: Beware The Reverse Brain Drain To India And China
#7Why not? India is obviously growing, China is growing, while US.. You know.
Re: Beware The Reverse Brain Drain To India And China
#8The statistic of people moving into senior management on moving 'home' suggests that companies in developing economies feel that they need American trained executives to compete with American companies.
So all this might mean is that middle managers in US companies are being automatically promoted into senior jobs in foreign companies because those companies feel insecure. This is great for the bank balance of those people but doesn't necessarily mean a great deal for the company.
It's also not a new phenomena - having a 'BtA' (Been to America) used to be almost a requirement for promotion in UK academia or medicine. It didn't lead to a huge amount of innovation in the NHS.
Re: Beware The Reverse Brain Drain To India And China
#9How many planned to return to India? I was shocked to see more than three-quarters of the audience raise their hands. Does this mean permanently? It could mean for vacation.
Anecdotal evidence for sure, but a lot of my friends, especially those with kids are thinking about heading back. In the past they felt that they would be giving too much career-wise if they did so, but with that barrier going away all the other advantages of heading back become very tempting (family, lifestyle, culture, etc)
Re: Beware The Reverse Brain Drain To India And China
#10"When we asked what was better about the U.S. than home, 54% of Indian and 43% of Chinese said that total financial compensation for their previous U.S. positions was better than at home. Health-care benefits were also considered somewhat better in the United States by 51 percent of Chinese respondents, versus 21 percent who thought it was better in their home country. (Indian respondents were split more evenly on th…
I think it's fair to call it a reverse brain drain in that post-World-War-II the US has benefited from a steady stream of above-the-curve immigration. It's not a temporary thing that's switching gears -- it's been a constant ebb for the last 60 years that helped establish the US as the dominant world economy. When you remove that from the equation, there is something core to American society that goes with it.
The only real problem, however, with this essay, is that it doesn't compare to some historical baseline other than an anecdote. It's not possible just from reading this to tell how big of a change this really is.