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Economics vocabulary · Development and Inequality

Brain drain

Meaning in economics, with examples

nounCommon term

In economics, brain drain means: The movement of highly educated or skilled people, such as doctors, engineers and scientists, to another country that offers better pay or conditions.

In Turkish: beyin göçü

How it is used

A concern for many developing and middle-income countries, which lose human capital they paid to educate. The opposite ideas are brain gain and brain circulation, when emigrants return or keep working links with home. Countries try to stop, reverse or slow the brain drain.

Example sentences

  1. The brain drain of young doctors is putting pressure on public hospitals.

  2. Better research funding could help slow the brain drain.

Common collocations

  • reverse the brain drain
  • brain drain of doctors
  • brain gain
  • suffer a brain drain
  • human capitalThe knowledge, skills, health and experience of workers, seen as an asset that raises productivity and income in the same way as machines or buildings.
  • developing countryA country with a lower average income, less industrial output and weaker infrastructure than the rich industrialised countries.
  • youth unemploymentUnemployment among young people, usually measured for those aged 15 to 24 who are looking for work but cannot find a job.
  • labour shortageA situation in which employers cannot find enough workers, or enough workers with the right skills, to fill their vacancies.

More terms: Development and Inequality

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