Diaspora brain drain may be good for Irish economy

The wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth over Ireland’s ‘brain drain’ of qualified professional migrants may be premature, according to a university study.

Noting that expecting the small, mainly rural Republic of Ireland to employ every single member of its globalised, educated younger community is wishful thinking, the study’s conclusion is that migrants actually want to gain experience overseas. In short, they see emigrating as a personally positive move.

The experience of families left behind is, of course, negative, and the leaving rips apart the fabric of family life, but emigrants see it as a lifeline to a higher salary, better job opportunities and a challenging new life. The previous ‘emigration years’ in the 1980s and ‘90s initiated high growth in the early years of this century as most who had left returned, bringing with them their new-found expertise.

If those graduates had stayed, they would have missed out on the broader world view working abroad gives, as well as the added expertise which creates valuable employees in the modern workplace. Low emigration has its pitfalls, as seen in Ireland’s present-day IT industry, now lacking abilities and skills only obtainable overseas in sophisticated IT hubs such as Silicon Valley.

The present-day ‘emigration years’ show a different reality from those of past diasporas, with seeing the world and its effect on migrants themselves an important reason for leaving, according to the study. That and similar reasons explain why almost half of the migrant respondents left full-time jobs to try their luck overseas.

It seems that the 21st century will be a time of mass movement between countries, with people migrating for many different reasons. Hundreds of millions of humans move over huge distances every year, whether it’s to find work in the cities as in China, to escape wars and unrest as in the Arab countries or, as in Ireland, for a sense of adventure and personal development.