Return of the native

When I was a student, with my parents aspiring more than me to become an engineer or doctor( both of which I did not become), there was only one passion that I could hear from those who passed out from the premium engineering or medical colleges- to live the American dream and to go to the US of A to make dollars)). Every now and then there was a debate in the academicia on how this brain drain is impacting our economy and our country. Well for sure it was, for eg IIT’s which is probably one of the top 5 engineering institution in the world was heavily subsidized by the government, almost to about 80% for the undergraduate studies. Until the process of liberalisation started in early 1990s, India experienced large scale emigration of IITians to western countries, especially to the United States. Since 1953, nearly twenty-five thousand IITians have settled in the USA.[65] Since the USA benefited from subsidised education in IITs at the cost of Indian taxpayers' money, critics say that subsidising education in IITs is useless. Others support the emigration of graduates, arguing that the capital sent home by the IITians has been a major source of the expansion of foreign exchange reserves for India, which, until the 1990s, had a substantial trade deficit.
The same was the case with the premium management institutes like IIM’s. Though IIM’s are no longer subsidised , it was considered to be another pathways to the America’s or Europe.
But the trend seem to be reversing now, in what is called as a “reverse brain drain”. The extent of intellectual loss has receded substantially over the past decade, with the percentage of students going abroad dropping from as high as 70% to around 30% today.
Researchers from Harvard, Duke and New York University released an analysis of international patent filings that also tracked this new phenomenon of "reverse brain drain."

The study shows that while foreign nationals, mostly Indians and Chinese, contributed to 25.6% of all US international patent applications in 2006, thousands of them are heading home because of hurdles in their bid to become permanent US residents. The new study shows that in 2006, 16.8 per cent of international patent applications from the United States had an inventor or co-inventor with a Chinese heritage name while the contribution of inventors with Indian-heritage names was 13.7 per cent.

According to a recent study done by Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation , almost 100,00 thousand Indians and an equal number of Chinese are going to return back to their home countries in the next 3- 5 years from the US.

From what I understand here are the following reasons for the “ reverse brain drain” or the urge to return to the native land.

• Though there is all these concepts of equal opportunity, Chinese and Indians feel that they are sometimes treated as second class citizens in the country where they contribute a significant high amount of revenues for its development. This is felt more by students in schools and can be quiet demeaning for the parents who donot want their children to be exposed to this.
• According to the research by Vivek Wadwa , there aren't enough permanent-resident visas available each year for skilled workers and their families. And there is a limit of fewer than 10,000 visas that can be issued to immigrants from any single country. So countries with the largest populations such as India and China are allocated the same number of visas as Iceland and Mongolia. This leads to frustrations. Based on a 2003 study of new legal immigrants to the U.S. called the New Immigrant Survey, they estimated that about 1 in 3 professionals who had been through the immigration process either planned to leave the U.S. or were uncertain about remaining
• Today if there is any country which needs its talent back, it is India and China , and most of the immigrants in US are aware of it, and they are seizing every single opportunity to grab this. The average salary of an IT or Management professional in India for eg is not any less than the similar profile person in US, and with the cost of living in India or China she/ he can make substantial savings.
• The call of patriotism is another pull in factor for many to return back. They want to be seen contributing to their country directly rather than just transferring dollars into our forex. For eg when they see Indian companies like TATA’s , Mittal’s and others giants acquiring companies globally, it gives them a unique pride of being part of that new corporate era. Till now people used to be associated only with American or European or Japanese companies where some of the times you feel like an outsider. This changes when you feel you are associated with an “ My country company”. Though in most of the cases it is a myth that you grow more in your “home country” company than a “ foreign company”, it can be a psychological booster for many employees.
• Social values often depicted in Indian movies like “Mitr” is a big pull back factor. I have seen a lot of parents who are caught between getting their kids educated in India vs Staying with their family in US. With increasing income levels and growing primary education quality now in India, most parents are choosing their kids to be educated in India and hence making choices of returning back to India to stay with them. They donot want their kids to get inducted into a different “ western style” system early in their lives.
• Changing economic scenario is another contributing factor. With this economic meltdown being seen, jobs are shrinking in US. This does not necessarily mean that jobs are not going away in India or China, but there is growth still seen in some sectors where they are able to tap the local markets. A 5- 7% growth is still not that bad after all and if we see some investment friendly, less beauracratic acts from the govt of India and China, we can see a lot of those Indian and Chinese entrepreneurs who invested and build places like silicon valley considering their home countries as their option.

This does not mean that all is good for India and China. On one hand with this reverse brain drain these countries may benefit hugely in terms of its intellectual capacity, but there is going to be a few bottlenecks that they need to be sorted out. Not that all the people who return will be your “ intellectual capital” from day one. They need the right infrastructure and the right policies to perform in their home turf. It also need to be taken into consideration that there would be sudden decline in your foreign currency flow and India and China( more specially India) has to find ways to manage this on a short term basis.

It is also not true that people have stopped their American dream. It is just that there could be a temporary hiatus as part of a normal evolutionary system. If the govts of India and China wants to tap this opportunity and use this to their advantage they should start acting now. And if the US does not want to loose its “ skills capability” , it should stop being complacent, be less arrogant and start looking at either building their internal capability or find ways and means to ensure that they address the concerns of the immigrants immediately.