Should Barbados and the region be worried about brain drain?
In 2011, one year into his leadership of Barbados, Prime Minister Freundel Stuart made a vow while addressing Barbadians overseas.
Delivering the keynote speech during a fundraising dinner hosted by the Democratic Labour Party’s (DLP) Canada chapter, Stuart said Barbados had to be “redefined” and that Barbadians overseas had an important role to play.
In a sense, he was speaking about a reversal of so-called brain drain, where Barbadian nationals left their homeland in search of work and other opportunities in other countries.
The Prime Minister told the audience: “When we think of Barbados, we should think not only of those people on the island, but also of our nationals in the diaspora; and it’s our subtle conviction that they should now be fully integrated into what it is we are attempting to do in our country.
“That means we are now elevating the concept of remittances beyond money to social remittances. We no longer want only what you have earned, but also what you have learned here in Canada and other parts of the world, and in looking at filling posts back home and the planning of the development of Barbados.”
He added: “We are looking beyond our population to draw on those nationals who live overseas. It’s that thinking that led us in our search for a new chief justice [now Sir Marston Gibson] and there is more of that to come. Therefore, I want you to stay tuned to this station because we are going to be drawing on the talent and the know-how of people in Canada as well.”
Five years later, the extent to which Stuart’s words became reality is unclear, but by regularly holding the Barbados Network Consultation – where Barbadians overseas return home to discuss opportunities for involvement here – his administration has taken at least one step forward.
On May 15, 2008, the then new DLP Government headed by the late David Thompson released a policy document on migration management. It was published by the Ministry of Labour.
Its formulation was predicated on the view that “in recent years, the migratory patterns of labour have become a growing concern of policy makers and development theorists as a perpetual brain drain is occurring in most developing countries”.
Noting that brain drain referred to “the sizeable loss of a nation’s highly skilled and educated labour to other countries”, the policy document said the issue was region-wide. It noted that the region’s skilled people including “university graduates, media workers, sports persons, musicians, artists, managers, supervisors and other service providers” could be lost to more developed countries.
Part of CARICOM’s solution to this was to introduce a regime where work permits were not required if these individuals wanted to work in other CARICOM countries.
This freedom of movement has not always gone smoothly, but that is another topic of discussion for another time.
Barbados’ Ministry of Labour said modern growth and development theories suggested that brain drain “can have significant implications on a country’s growth and development”.
It said so while adding that labour migration could be attributed to various factors including poor remuneration at home, bad working conditions, limited opportunities for professional development at home, non-involvement in the decision-making process, lack of support and respect from supervisors/authoritie unstable economic climate, and little job security.
In terms of solutions, reference was made to recommendations from International Labour Organisation representative B. Lindsay Lovell who suggested “offsetting” measures such as retention policies, restriction policies, resourcing expatriates, recruitment policies, and reparations.
There is another side to the story, though.
This includes the fact that remittances from Caribbean nationals living and working overseas contributes significantly to the economic well-being of Caribbean nations.
These individuals are also eventually able to transfer knowledge gained in their adopted homelands to the places of their birth.
So that in totality there are pros and cons involved in labour migration and related brain drain.
Based on reports published online as recent as last year, the brain drain problem is not as acute in Barbados as it is in other countries. The website insidermonkey.com listed the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Jamaica, Mexico, China, Iran, Greece, India, Kenya, Nigeria, and Ethiopia as the countries most affected by the phenomenon. (SC)
