Brain Drain back to India
It didn’t take me more than a few months to realize that life actually is more fun and comfortable in this part of the world than back at home. My Job at a big corporation with a laid-back culture and life in a relatively smaller town certainly helped.
Sure, I missed my family and friends but the fun and exciting activities in the beautiful Pikes Peak area compensated for it. Soon I concluded that going back to Bangalore or Bombay and survive in those big and crowed cities again probably is difficult.
Well, I was not alone! There are research articles to back me up the fact that most of the Indian (and Chinese) immigrants historically do not return, instead tend to call America their home. They cited ease of living and better career opportunities as the reason.
In 1998, during one of those weekend evenings at Chestnut Hill (“solving the problems of our world over a beer” routine ) Anil told me that he intend to go back to India after a “few years” here. I didn’t hide the sarcasm in my voice when I responded, “be sure to call me, say after 10 years to tell me where you are”. Well, last year he called me. The call was from Chennai.
I was still a skeptic. Last weekend, as part of “solving the problems of our world over a beer” routine (I fortunately have another group to do this with now!), a couple of the guys commented, things are indeed different these days. They claimed that work-life balance aspect is much better in India now. I was still not convinced but decided to investigate more.
Timely as it can be, recent Business Week had a one page article titled “America’s Immigrant Brain Drain” by Vivek Wadhwa. The article is based on survey conducted with 1203 people who had went back to their home country (India or China) after living in United states for a while. To my surprise, most of them said their motivation to return home was not visa issues but said it was based on career opportunities, family ties, and quality of life. In fact, a good number (28% of Indians and 34% of Chinese) of the returnees had green cards or citizenship in US.
This business week article is based on the latest paper of a series of studies examining the contributions of immigrant workers in the technology sector and the immigration issues. They state that companies that immigrants founded employed 450,000 workers and generated $52 billion in revenue in 2006. Latest paper (“America’s Loss Is the World’s Gain“) of this study was based on the LinkedIn survey with 1203 people. One of the motivations of this study was to find the effect of long wait and other issues that affect an immigrant in technology sector to obtain a permanent residency status. As mentioned above, this survey shows that the primary issue is not the immigration process. This paper goes on to suggest some possible ways to stop this Brain Drain. One thought is not only make the immigration process of the worker easier, but also to make it easier for their extended family. Think about how that comment will go in United States in today’s economy.
I am not sure if this survey was done on a statistically diverse sample. Is 1203 a large enough sample for this type of conclusion? Including a group of people that chose to stay in the united states both on a temporary visa status and in a Permanent status would have been a good control group for this study. Nevertheless, this is an interesting study.
I would like to hear from you. Please comment and/or send it to a friend. Do you have intentions to go back? If so, do you have plans already? Why or Why not? If you have gone back, do you still think that was the right decision? Why or Why not?
Tags: immigration, India, LinkedIn
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By Mohan, March 18, 2009 @ 6:11 am
Hi Manoj
This is a fascinating topic for a dinnertime/cocktail conversation among immigrants.. and there is no right-or-wrong here: it boils down to a purely personal choice at a point in time
As the world continues to flatten – apologies Tom Friedman – we are going to see such back and forth among white-collar workers more than in the past.
By Binu, March 23, 2009 @ 10:26 pm
Coming to US was a dream come true for me. I did get a cultural shock in the beginning. It didn’t take me very long to love this country and the freedom it gave me. The smile you get even from a stranger here, who considers you as another fellow human being is something that I’ll miss very much if I go back to India. I would love to stay back in this country since it made me who I’m and who I wanted to be. But I’m just thinking lately, never say never. I’m glad that biomedical scientists will be on high demand in India in the coming days since they are opening new research facilities there. Its been less than five years since I’ve been in the US but, one thing I know for sure, it will be tough for me to leave this country.
By Prasanth, April 13, 2009 @ 12:22 pm
The time it took for me to finally add this repose since I promised it, shows one thing, how I stay away from haunting thoughts like these, by living in an oblivion, far away from reality… you keep yourselves active like a dog chasing its own tail, drowned in mundane tasks, like when living where you belong is only an afterthought for blogs and its responses like these..
So Manoj, I am still here, the eviscerated leaf that has flown to far down the river, is at a point of no going back. Unless the tide reverses and we are all standing line in an Indian consulate for a visa to work for three years… Strange uh, that a man will die for a pile of mud, only if it was deemed hard to get?
I have heard great stories from people who have finally made the move back. I do read stories like the one you were pointing to, where folks back in India are electing to stay back rather than migrate to greener pastures, or may be grass is indeed beginning to green up back home. It definitely looks like it during our annual pilgrimages, though a lot more could change in attitudes and political systems.
The truth is for me, I would rather have to wait for a change now, the one that were the storm just stop and blows the other way…
By Rajiv, April 16, 2009 @ 3:17 am
Hi Manoj, This is a very interesting topic for discussion amongst many Indians residing in the US. I have been a part of these numerous times and I agree that there is no right or wrong side here. Every case is as unique and personal as it gets. I am presently in India (in Pune) and I realize that the standard of living has gone up many folds over the past few years that I was away. I won’t comment on the work/life balance as I have been seeing both sides of the coin here and I feel its upto to the individual.
Jokes aside, in this case also I think the folks stay back for some reason which is unique in most cases. Whatever the reason and whatever the outcome, I feel that they should be happy with whatever they decide. That’s one of the things they might have to live with for a long time.
I also happen to know a lot of friends who promised themselves that they would return some day but that day is yet to be printed on any calendar.
By Sonya, October 21, 2009 @ 9:13 pm
I see your blog was specific to India and China, but don’t forget about Australia. The quotas of Aussie workers in the US are never filled, but some of us do still leave the mother country. I guess the question is why, because the quality of life in Australia is one of the highest in the world. I am guessing it is more for the adventure because even the world’s largest island can feel small when you are so far away from everyone else. And so the crux of your post. I’ve been gone for 15 years, and as I departed Australia’s sunny shores I had assured my mum I’d be gone about a year. Now I am trying to find my way home, along with my additional baggage (namely a husband and three kids). So I will be adding to the reverse brain drain when I finally leave, and doing so will be hard because I understand that even though my quality of life will be great the power of my money will be less. There is no Walmart to cheapen the cost of almost everything I want to buy, so I will need to readjust my perspective somewhat. The Beatles once sung ‘you can’t buy me love’, and I guess that will ring true once I return home.
I return so that my children will get the chance to enjoy an Australian childhood. I return as my parents are aging and I would rather spend some time with them while they are still active than next to their coffins at their funeral. I return because my husband is an only child, so the only really family we have are my brothers and their families in Australia. I return because its about time my husband spend some time as the foreigner and I return because I want to see if America has spoiled me.
Interesting topic indeed….
By Manoj Vadakkan, October 27, 2009 @ 6:09 pm
Thank you Sonya for your comment.
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