Talk:Brain drain

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Refactoring and adding headings

I just reorgihnized the paragraph order and added osme headings. I probbly read the whoel three times while doing it but did not have time to read it start to finish after the last change so someone shoudl double check that I did not intoduce any forward or backward refrence problems by moving paragraphs around wholsale. I will give it another look tomorrow I hope. Dalf | Talk 03:54, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Sources - good use of figures, but need to be backed up!!! Needs some links to back these claims up!

Indian brain drain-what about it?

[edit] Canadian brain-drain

I think the section about rhetoric backfiring in Canada (recently removed) should be reworded more neutrally and placed into a separate section about brain drain and social policy. Planning to do that sometime this week. Novickas 16:40, 14 October 2006 (UTC) w where is indian brain drain llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll wahat the heck!? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.71.27.133 (talk) 00:08, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Headline text

here is Indian brain drain In India there is no value of work. if u speak good if u have good communication skills then u lead in company also in software development company. In India if one person do his work honestly the all work load is put into his shoulder and also give him less increment and give him excuse that u had not completed your task on time ie why your increment is less. and give more increment to a person who had not touch his task and told to PM that no need to worry i will give u with in a day..........

[edit] South Africa

Brain drain is one of the biggest issues in SA since the end of Apartheid. Much of the current policy of the government is based on the concept of educating black SAfricans so that they may fill the positions vacated by white emigrants without a drop in standards. There needs to be a section on this, as it is a huge issue in an important country.

I will second the idea of adding a Brain drain section on South-Africa. The total number of emmigrants may be small on a global scale (about 1 Million emmigrants since 1994), but the fact this this represents about 20% of the white population and that these are usually the skilled top 20% does make this a significant issue.

I came to this page looking for information on the South African brain drain. As stated above, it has a remarkable scale within the population, and I recall (but cannot cite) hourglass-shaped population breakdowns due to the mass departure of white South African graduates. My concern might rather be one of the scale that warrants a separate section. If New Zealand has a separate section, should not South Africa too? Warrickball (talk) 11:59, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Voice

This article is written largely in an odd voice. It seems like text copied from a non-encyclopedic source. The article relies heavily on a report, largely rearticulating it rather than treating the subject matter directly. Hopefully someone more familiar with the evolution of this article can work on it. Maybe someone more familiar with Wikipedia tagging can put some appropriate tag to draw attention to the need to revisit this article.

I'm going to watch this page to see what happens, to learn about this process. Christian Campbell 02:34, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Totally agree - this reads like a peer review of the World Bank report on brain drain, rather than an article actually about brain drain in its own right. I suspect it has been copied word-for-word from somewhere else. Needs total re-write. Andrew Oakley 16:23, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Confirmed - vast swathes of this article have been copied from this World Bank press release which is copyrighted. Will tag with WP:CP . Andrew Oakley 16:29, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Brain Grab

Removed from article:

Brain Grab
The term "brain grab" coined by Astrid Wood in 2007 refers to aggressive policies that entice young, educated talent to urban areas. The "Creative Class" is a term referring to the development of young, artistic individuals with means. The influx of the Creative Class increases spending and leads to general improvements. The fight over the "Creative Class" is an example of a brain grab.

Reason:

Searching for references on Google [1], yields zero results. The "Brain Grab" section was also not integrated with the rest of the article, but tacked on. If anybody finds a reference, and puts it back into the article, please integrate it more. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.120.182.105 (talk) 08:36, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edits by User:Badenoch

Many of the statements being made are highly subjective and controversial:

  • Unskilled workers tend to be a net drain on the economy. They don't pay much tax, have high unemployment, have high social costs}, are difficult to educate and are predisposed to crime.
-Softened the paragraph to reflect the fiscal burden, without being specific about why they are a burden.
  • The overall picture is bleak. Europe's birth rate is much too low.
-The Commissions has clearly chosen to present bleak statistics, so that they can get political support for policy changes. Their rather blunt description of migration patterns is very relevant to the topic of brain drain. This statement has been strengthened by quoting the Commission.
  • To make matters even worse the unskilled immigrants that do come are a drain on the economy and are upsetting the public. If things don't improve, it will become difficult to convince voters that immigration is in their interests.
Softened to describe the problem of fiscal burden and left out comments about public anxiety.

Simply put, one cannot write such things on Wikipedia without extensive citations and in a neutral tone of voice. Since Badenoch has clearly put much effort into adding to this article, I invite him to contribute to this discussion to see how the information can be added without being (in my eyes) inflammatory making normative statements. Kelvinc (talk) 07:43, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


The deffinition of neutral view depends ones persective. It is my opinion that the European Commission represents is resonably central political view, and those with anti-immigration views are extreme, sometimes known as far-right political parties [2]. Please understand that although these parties enjoy substantial political support, they are still a minority in most European countries.

All of the major arguments are referenced, mostly from the European Commission either directly or indirectly. You will notice that the European Commission front page on immigration polices touches on many of the core concepts presented. Other references are from statistical agencies, scientific jornals etc.Badenoch (talk) 01:50, 27 November 2007 (UTC)


Okay. At least it's clear you're not using Wikipedia to push some sort of agenda, which is the general impression when you wrote that immigrants are predisposed to crime right beside an SVP election ad. But I suggest reading WP:NPOV and WP:OR.
The main issue I have with your contributions is not that I find the European Commission to be insufficiently "central", but that it only represents one point of view. Wikipedia seeks to present all perspectives, in a way that is relatively balanced and true to real-world levels of support in different opinions. Terms like "talented people" are subjective (better to state education levels). It's not exactly clear what is "bleak": your summary of what's happening in Europe may well be delightful to a Europhobe. If Europe will be poor and aging with crumbling infrastructure, just say so without adding emotional adjectives.
And the whole thing still reads a lot like a research paper, which we should be avoiding, instead of an encyclopedia article, which makes it read like original research. I'm not exactly sure how to fix this second issue, but I'm happy to see that we're collaborating to improve the article. Kelvinc (talk) 05:14, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Kelvinc personally I don't know any Europhobes, so I have no idea what delights them. However from your wikipage I notice that you are interested in Anglospherism (especially the White Commonwealth) and Sinospherism. These interests seem to have distinct racial/cultural undertones. A friend of mine informs me that there are websites that cater for these interests where people can freely debate racial/cultural issues. Perhaps these might be better at meeting your needs than wikipedia. Badenoch (talk) 07:28, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality and Original research issues?

  • Have the neutrality (and possible original research) issues raised for the "European overview" section been sufficiently addressed? Where were the issues raised, and how were they addressed? Please provide diffs or other pointers to whatever discussion has already taken place. tia Dlabtot (talk) 23:08, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Where's Figure 1

Erm... where's figure 1? does anyone know? I read the whole section 3 times but I still couldn't find it. If anyone knows, could you tell me? Please? Shadowex132 (talk) 11:34, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Complete Overhaul

I think it's recognized that this page needs some serious work. The page is disorganized, and clearly has problems with citations and neutrality. While sections like New Zealand have no citations at all, some parts have a few, and some may yet stand up to scrutiny.

I suggest a major overhaul, with three objectives:

  • organize the page into a coherent and logical structure,
  • establish which sections are properly cited, and copy-edit them, and
  • try to find sources for unsourced statements, deleting those that cannot be verified, and editing as necessary.

Even though I haven't undertaken such a large edit before, I figure I can't damage the page much. Hopefully I'll learn and contribute at the same time. I've already re-organized, and now I'm ploughing through each section to check the sources and fix the prose. I'm going to be a ruthless at times: there's a one-liner about Malaysia, which I'm taking out. If it turns out to be substantial, we can put it back later. (I also don't really know where to start on the Studies section, and I'll worry about the Europe section later. Many facts, but wrong style.) Any help is greatly appreciated!

Warrickball (talk) 20:07, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Updating as I go...

  • Malaysia: One line, unsourced. Gone for now.
  • Philippines: Wow. It's real, and received a lot of news coverage around 2006. There were hints of restrictive laws being passed to keep "critical skills" in the country, notably pilots. I couldn't find any hard sources though.
  • Venezuela: I can't verify the BradyNet article. There is the Telegraph article, but it's all I could find, and lacks hard numbers. Most of the text seemed to come straight out of the articles.
  • Cuba: It's verifiable, but it appears that we are talking about a few hundred doctors defecting. Not really a brain drain, but I'll leave it for now.
  • Suriname: There are sources, but it's not really restricted to Suriname: they're just the leader. Since the nature is the same in the region, I'm changing this to Caribbean.
  • Canada: Good enough for me not to scrutinize intently now.
  • New Zealand: Definitely an issue, but there are claims of a net influx of skills. Needs some more up-to-date sources.
  • Middle East: Iran is actually well-sourced. I added sources and stats for Iraq.
  • Europe: I basically rewrote the section, inlining statistics, citing almost everything, while trying to preserve the valid content that existed before. I personally disapprove of the diagram showing the migration trends, but I'll leave it until later (particularly, to see if some discussion erupts).
  • South Africa: Created the section, using news reports from international and local sources. This goes for all sections, but much of this can be greatly extended using offline sources. In the case of South Africa, the SAIRR Surveys (tome of stats, basically) should have a lot of figures, along with their Fast Facts pamphlets that are published quarterly.

Warrickball (talk) 14:32, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Studies

I've noticed that this section is a word-for-word copy of this page. As such, I'm going to remove it completely. The facts represented in the opening paragraphs are mostly covered elsewhere (notably under Caribbean Islands). The other trends can be restored once we've found a new place for them. I'm already rethinking another re-organization of the page... Warrickball (talk) 10:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)