Impact of non-immigrant workers on the developing nation

Earlier, I mentioned how a healthy influx of non-immigrant works can actually be beneficial to a developed nation. So, how does this impact the nation on the other end - the developing nation?

Once again, it has its benefits and drawbacks, and I feel that the drawbacks this time outweigh the benefits. The benefit is mainly two fold: One, as most developing countries tend to have a population growth higher than what they can sustain, the reduction in the population can help reduce the burden a bit. However, this is not necessarily entirely beneficial, as the population that is going out is one that can help improve the economy of the nation than be a burden, as most tend to be the law-abiding, tax-paying kind. Second, those who do decide to make their fortunes abroad tend to send back quite a bit of cash back to their families back home, there by increasing the foreign currency reserves of the country and also improving the purchase power of the families, which in turn, can improve the economy.

However, the downside is fairly significant. As I mentioned earlier, most of those who do go out to find better opportunities tend to be more law-abiding and tax-paying and hence, the nation tends to lose the tax income from them. Moreover, they also tend to be better educated than the average citizen and the nation as a result, loses good leaders and entrepreneurs who would've otherwise helped improve indigenous companies.

So, what can a nation do to prevent this 'brain drain'? To answer this, we must first understand why people tend to move outside their home country in the first place and take steps to fix those issues. While there is a percent of folks who want to go to another country due to some connections they already have or just because of plain curiosity, the following, I believe, are the more common reasons:

1. Perception of better social infrastructure (aka quality of living) - be it roads, houses, basic facilities, or government interactions, the developed countries have a better system than the developing nations. While corruption and mismanagement is there in every nation, it tends to be less when it is the closest to the typical citizen in most cases. Police do their job regardless of the stature of the person or his connections; electricity and water is available without having to run to multiple government branches; work generally gets done without bribery.
   
2. Perception of better education - while the school system in many developed countries are no better than those of developing nations, the higher education is significantly better. This could primarily be due to the healthy interaction between companies and universities. Most professors get grants from companies/government to do research and even develop some projects. Such a mechanism is not there in developing countries, where universities are essentially seen as extension to schools.
3. Perception of better freedom - both men and women tend to feel that there is generally better freedom to say and do things in developed nations. This could be politics such as criticizing the government for inaction or social behavior such as morality, dress code, etc.
   
4. Perception of better opportunities - the capitalist nature of developed countries tends to foster competition. The growth of IT also has made it easy for someone with one background to easily switch to another. Till a decade or so back, it was very difficult for an Mechanical Engineer to become an Electronics Major. People were typically put in silos and it was increasingly hard for them to break the mold. Thanks to IT in part, this has changed in the recent years, and more and more opportunities are coming up for fresh graduates. However, the issue still persists outside the IT industry.

In order to stem the 'brain drain', I feel that a nation that is truly interested in protecting its intellectual property must address these concerns.

While the purchasing power of the middle class citizens has increased enabling them to buy cars that they could only dream of in the past, the transport infrastructure has not caught up, resulting in major gridlocks, which in turn, is affecting the overall health of the nation. While IT has made leaps and bounds, the network is still significantly inadequate. One of the pleasant surprises that I got when I went back to India a few years back (first time after the Globalization) was the ease at which one could get a gas connection or a telephone. What used to take a year or two is now happening in a week. Things definitely have improved, but the road is still very long.

While there are way more universities and colleges than used to be a decade back, the quality of education has not improved significantly. In fact, it has gone down, thanks to numerous 'wealthy' individuals opening a college for making more money than for imparting better education. The evil of 'management quota' and 'reservation' still exists. What is urgently needed is a merit system (with economic support - such as scholarships) and a healthy involvement of businesses. This would not only bring the much needed cash to the education system, but also better prepare the students for job opportunities once they graduate.

India has always prided in being a democratic and secular country, where every citizen has fundamental rights of speech and worship. However, in the recent years, fundamental groups of all religions have cropped up and taken the role of 'moral' police. This is a very dangerous trend, which, if not cropped at the bud, would only lead more people to leave the country than stay back. A strong action needs to be taken to ensure that moral policing does not happen. India has survived for centuries without requiring moral policing and has withstood invasions from Mughal and British empires without losing its core values and without a need for a moral police.

While the IT industry has helped significantly in enabling fresh graduates to get better opportunities not just in IT but also in related industries such as commerce, there are still other areas like arts and literature that are languishing due to lack of support. While most political parties take up a language issue in one form or the other, none seem to be genuinely interested in protecting and promoting the indigenous languages and cultures. This must change for arts and literature to flourish along with technology and provide the much needed balance to the system.

These measures, I feel, would greatly help a developing nation, be it India or China, to compete fairly and healthily with developed nations such as USA and UK, and hopefully make the world a better place.