Labour market performance and migration flows - European ...

Chapter IFinal Reportstands at 29.7% (based on data from OECD countries, the rate of migration for the high skilled stands at38.6%, according to data of Docquier and Marfouk 2005 – see Table 5.2.1). Almost 22% of universitygraduates migrate each year, and 50% of current university students wish to leave.However, the rates of migrant selectivity among AMCs are highest in Egypt and Jordan, where theshare of graduate migrants exceeds 50% (but due to the large stock no brain drain seems to beunderway). In any case the region has seen the migration of 9% of their university graduates onaverage, almost double as much as the 5% world average. In the case of Algeria, for instance,estimates range from between 9.4% and 18% of all national graduates, in Morocco between 17% and19.5% and for Tunisia between 12.5% and 21.5%, a very high level. In Egypt, by contrast, it stands atfewer than 5% (World Bank 2009a, p. 96). Figures in Table 5.2.1 are roughly equivalent to the morerecent data provided for North Africa and Near and Middle East Countries in Table 6.3.1.1, referredexclusively to migrant workers in the EU. In any case, the figures in Table 5.2.1 should be taken as aminimum estimation of graduate migration in AMCs, since they exclude migration to Gulf States.Table 5.2.1. Rates of emigration and selection rates of migrants from AMCs, 1990-2000Rate of emigration (%)by skillsSelection rate (%)by skillsLow Medium High Total Low Medium High TotalAlgeria 4.6 2.1 9.4 4.5 76.7 9.2 14.1 100.0Egypt 0.2 0.8 4.6 0.9 18.3 22.9 58.9 100.0Jordan 1.0 2.4 7.2 2.8 16.4 28.0 55.6 100.0Lebanon 9.4 11.1 38.6 15.0 30.4 25.1 44.5 100.0Morocco 6.8 8.1 17.0 7.6 70.6 16.5 12.9 100.0Palestine 1.0 2.5 7.2 2.9 15.8 29.1 55.0 100.0Syria 0.9 2.3 6.1 1.9 31.0 24.7 44.3 100.0Tunisia 5.1 3.8 12.5 5.4 73.0 12.1 14.9 100.0Source: Docquier and Marfouk (2005). Based on OECD countries of destination statistics.In any case, what is clear is that the loss caused by migration of qualified workers is not only adirect cost, i.e. the cost of losing the production of those workers in the best jobs available for them inthe county (that cost tends to be zero when graduate unemployment is very high, as it is the case inAMCs). There is also the opportunity cost of losing the returns on the investment in education made inthose qualified workers, often with a substantial investment of public resources (public expenditure oneducation averages more than 5% in AMCs, a very substantial part of it on university education).To what extent this loss of human capital and public education investment is compensated throughthe increase in private educational investment induced by the prospects to migrate in AMCs is unclear.While there is limited direct evidence with respect to the impact of the prospect to migrate on humancapital formation in AMCs, some indirect evidence can be gained by observing the pattern of migrationby skill levels reflected in Table 5.2.1. The theoretical arguments outlined above reveal that a necessarycondition for the occurrence of a beneficial brain drain is represented by an increase in the expectedreturn to education once migration prospects open up, and this entails that better educated individualshave either a higher incentive to migrate because of the prevailing wage distribution at destination, or abetter ability to do so, because of skill-selective immigration policies. Still, what we observe in Table5.2.1 need not be driven by a higher incentive or better ability to migrate for better educatedindividuals, as the skill premium in wage distribution tends to fall with higher levels of income. Thepossibility that the emigration rates across educational groups reported in Table 5.2.1 are influenced bythe adoption of skill-selective immigration policies seems unreliable as well, as migrants to OECD71