Meaning
The loss of a country's or organization's educated, skilled, and talented people to better-paying or better-equipped places abroad. The phrase frames the exodus as hemorrhage: the departure of minds is a wound that leaves the home institution weaker with every departure - and the receiving country richer. Standard in policy and education journalism; it implies loss and is mildly contested by economists who prefer net migration terms. Brain gain and reverse brain drain are the standing counters. Regional use: General English; British scientific origin.
Origin
The Royal Society of London coined the expression in the early 1950s, its spokesmen using it to describe the emigration of British scientists and technologists to North America in the post-war years, when American salaries and laboratories drew talent across the Atlantic. A dated example follows fast: a 1955 United States Department of Agriculture proceedings volume discusses the often-discussed problem of the brain drain, finding it less serious in agriculture. The metaphor proved endlessly adaptable, extending from scientists to any profession, from countries to regions and firms, and even inverting - reverse brain drain for talent coming home, and brain gain for the countries that receive it, which Wiktionary records as the antonym. Some scholars now prefer more neutral migration terminology, since the drain framing assumes harm that not every study confirms.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- brain drains
- reverse brain drain
- talent drain
Usage Examples
- The university's physics department thinned by a brain drain that no raise could stem, whole research groups leaving for Geneva.
- Ministers promised fellowships to reverse the brain drain, but the returning postdocs found no laboratories to lead.
- Ireland's turnaround from brain drain to brain gain is the case study every economic conference cites.