the.com/brain drain
A country invests in genius, then watches the plane take off.
means The departure of skilled, highly educated people from one country, field, or organization to another that offers better pay or opportunity, leaving the original place thinner on talent.
from A mid-20th-century coinage, with the phrase often traced to 1960s Britain, where it described doctors and scientists leaving for better-paying posts in the United States and Canada — the word literally pairing 'brain' (intellect, expertise) with 'drain' (a slow, steady emptying, like water leaving a basin). It caught on quickly as shorthand for a real economic worry: that nations educating talent at public expense could simply watch it flow abroad.
- origin
- Coined 1960s for UK scientists fleeing to US
- irony
- Poor nations fund degrees rich nations harvest
- flip side
- Remittances sent home often outvalue the loss
- modern form
- Now mostly coders, doctors, and grad students