Taking Issue: should we be worried about a brain drain?

Asha Sundaram: Capturing the gains from emigration

Figures released earlier this year showed the biggest net loss of New Zealand citizens from Aotearoa since 2012, sparking concerns we’re losing tertiary-educated, skilled citizens to opportunities overseas, resulting in a brain drain.

This departure, called emigration, is likely driven by superior labour market opportunities and living standards abroad. While this prompts a hard look at our rising living costs and weak prospects of securing a lucrative job, emigration of skilled workers is not always bad for the economy.

A large diaspora of skilled New Zealanders can confer numerous benefits to Aotearoa. Emigrants repatriate funds to family back home, and these are typically spent in New Zealand, stimulating the local economy. Emigrants are known to generate trade and investment links between their home and host countries, opening new export markets for our businesses.

Besides, there is significant potential for transfer of knowledge from emigrants to their networks back home, which can spur innovation in New Zealand.

Finally, many emigrants do return to New Zealand, bringing new skills, experiences and ideas that can be leveraged for the benefit of the economy. The Indian and Chinese diaspora have been credited with playing a crucial role in establishing innovation hubs in their respective homes, sparking a technology revolution in these countries.

However, emigration of skilled New Zealanders isn’t without costs. Aotearoa loses tax revenue that these people might have contributed (though this is tempered by them not using public services), not to mention the high-paying jobs that the presence of skilled workers generates (though evidence suggests these losses are likely outweighed by the benefits).

What about the skills that New Zealand loses from a brain drain? New Zealand continues to attract international students and skilled migrants from overseas, many of whom struggle to find jobs commensurate with their skills.

Rather than worry about a brain drain, New Zealand is better served by focusing on policies that promote quality higher education, leverage immigrant talent, capture the gains from emigration and generate productive, dynamic jobs for those in the country.

Dr Asha Sundaram is a senior lecturer in the Department of Economics, Auckland Business School. 

Francis Collins: inequality a driver of emigration

Migration is a fundamental part of our world. Aotearoa has been formed through early arrivals of Māori and their establishment as Indigenous peoples as well as the European-dominated immigration of settler colonisation and subsequent arrivals of peoples from countries in the Pacific, Asia and other parts of the world.

People in Aotearoa are also very mobile today, with an estimated one million New Zealanders living outside the country, a constant flow of people between New Zealand and Australia, traditions of ‘overseas experience’ and diasporic reconnection through transnational return and circulation.

There have undoubtedly been very high levels of emigration from New Zealand in recent years and the net loss of New Zealand citizens this year has been particularly notable.

However, emigration is not new for New Zealand. Since the 1970s New Zealand has seen continued emigration that cyclically increases and decreases in line with domestic economic conditions. Cumulatively, the net loss of New Zealand citizens exceeds 800,000 since 1979, the majority of whom are likely to have settled in Australia.

So, rather than asking ‘should we be worried about a brain drain?’ perhaps the better question to ask is, ‘why has emigration continued apace for decades?’

Aside from measures of economic performance vis-à-vis Australia and other countries, it is worth asking how much inequality has driven the emigration of New Zealand citizens. Following four decades of neoliberal governance, New Zealand has ridiculously expensive and poor-quality housing, low wage growth and precarious employment, and rampant health and education inequities.

Inequality is a well-known driver of emigration around the world and is likely to be one of the key reasons for what we call ‘brain drain’ in New Zealand. If people cannot see a prosperous, wellbeing-enhancing future for themselves and their families here, are we surprised that they look elsewhere?

So, rather than worrying, perhaps we should instead be prompted to challenge the dominant political and economic orthodoxy that reproduce the inequalities that limit life opportunities in this country.

Francis Collins is a professor in the School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts.

Jennifer Curtin: tight trans-Tasman ties

Of New Zealand’s record net migration loss in the year ending June 2024, Stats NZ estimates that half of these went to Australia.

However, it is premature to be worried about this record high for at least two reasons.

First, geographical shifts in populations is a centuries-old phenomenon. Labelling it a ‘brain drain’ has a more recent history. In 1965, economist H.G Johnson wrote that the term was invented in the UK to ‘dramatise’ a situation where increasing numbers of public-sector professionals were emigrating across the Atlantic for better pay.

Fast forward 60 years and the global movement of people has increased exponentially, albeit unevenly. For example, while New Zealanders, especially those under 30, may choose to leave, New Zealand also benefits from a brain gain, as a destination of choice for professionals trained elsewhere. In the past 12 months New Zealand welcomed more than 150,000 migrants, ensuring a net migration gain of over 100,000, and a boost to the economy.

Second, the preference for Australia as a destination for many who depart is not a new phenomenon either. New Zealand and Australia enjoy historically rich and deeply intertwined economic, social and cultural connections. From the 1880s onwards there was what historian Rollo Arnold called the ‘perennial trans-Tasman interchange’.

New Zealand entrepreneurs, artists and journalists sought to expand their horizons in Australia, while Australian farmers and businesses found opportunities here. Even New Zealand’s political elite comprised Australian-born politicians. Premier Seddon was born in Victoria, while six members of the first Labour cabinet in 1935, were former Australians, including Prime Minister Michael Savage.

The asymmetry of the trans-Tasman interchange is a more recent trend. Air travel and globalisation made it a no-brainer. But with it has come familial, political and business connections, knowledge sharing, and emotional ties, that have sustained and enriched both nations. Long may it continue.

Jennifer Curtin is a professor of politics and public policy in the Faculty of Arts. She is the co-author of ‘Legacies of a Trans-Tasman Relationship: The Evolution of Asymmetry between New Zealand and Australia’ in Asymmetric Neighbors and International Relations: Living in the Shadow of Elephants. (2023)
 

Merryn Tawhai: moving on is an opportunity for growth

What editor doesn’t love a good brain drain headline? You’ve got rhyme, disaster and any number of potential culprits.

I beg to present an alternative. First: brain drain only happens when there’s not enough to keep the best people around. Second: brain drain done right can be a positive, not a negative.

Build it (right) and they will come (not leave). The Auckland Bioengineering Institute (ABI) was founded in 2001 by one of New Zealand’s brightest scientists – Peter Hunter, now Distinguished Professor Sir Peter Hunter. After engineering degrees at the University of Auckland he went to Oxford for his DPhil, then chose to come home and foster globally acclaimed bioengineering research from Aotearoa.

Sir Peter gathered bright minds around him. ABI started with 21 staff and students; we now have 146 academic and professional staff, of which a third are ABI alumni. We also have 125 first-class postgraduate students who choose to make New Zealand their home.

Our researchers come from 24 countries, attracted by impactful research alongside internationally regarded colleagues, a collegial culture, an enviable success rate attracting funding, and a deliberate policy of encouraging innovators to bring their research into the real world.

More than 25 ABI medical spin-out companies over almost 25 years have provided jobs, clinical impact and entrepreneurial challenges for our academics.

It is inevitable some staff leave academia (even the ABI!) for a more stable career, or stay in academia but are attracted to opportunities overseas. But that’s also a sort of brain gain. These researchers maintain their links with ABI, fostering a dynamic flow of knowledge and expertise that refreshes innovative thinking and maintains competitiveness. We are proud of everyone who moves on, and every departure represents new connections and an expanding network, which creates new opportunities for collaboration and access to global networks and funding. Many of our alumni who go overseas eventually return to ABI.

Of course we worry. Despite our success, sustaining a research programme in a highly constrained funding environment is a continual and increasing challenge.

But it’s one we’re up for.

Professor Merryn Tawhai is director of the Auckland Bioengineering Institute.

Nicola Gaston: tertiary education creates value

Should we be worried about a brain drain?

Absolutely, yes. But that doesn’t mean for a second that an OE is a bad idea, or that thinking of working overseas after your studies is to be discouraged – it’s just a question of the magnitude of the trends we are seeing right now.

In the year to April, we hit a record for the number of New Zealand citizens leaving the country – almost 80,000 of us. Luckily, immigration from elsewhere reduces the total loss – and I’m a solid believer in international mobility and migration being a good thing, so I think that is a win – but the net consequence still leaves us in the red.

It’s not just about numbers of people, but their potential contribution to our economy that we lose. Especially when those who leave New Zealand are predominantly young people with university education. That’s a loss for all of us.

We’re probably all too familiar with narratives around the cost of tertiary education, and so think first of the loss to Aotearoa based on that lost investment. But the thing is, funding for tertiary education creates real value.

Each graduate returns, on average, two to three times the public investment to the economy, according to OECD data. So we shouldn’t just be seeing it as a lost investment, but as an opportunity cost in terms of what those graduates could have contributed here.

The New Zealand economy has been and still is changing and diversifying. The tech sector that we have now was nothing I could have imagined when I graduated; in my own area of the physical sciences I see deep-tech and cleantech start-ups both providing exciting jobs for graduates passionate about what they can do for the economy and the environment. And, indeed, many of these start-ups are being driven by graduates who are motivated to create the jobs that they want to do, for themselves, here in Aotearoa.

So yes: we should be seriously worried about a brain drain. But we don’t need to accept it as an inevitability. Our universities can and must be part of the solution.

Nicola Gaston is a professor of physics in the Faculty of Science.

Ralph Cooney: supporting sectors to stem the cascade

The international competition for skills and innovation that contributes to the ‘brain-drain’ is like a complex cascade: a flow of New Zealand university graduates enter the Australian economy, for example, at the same time as Australian graduates seek careers in richer economic pools, like the US or the EU.

On the other hand, graduates from elsewhere will look for improved opportunities in countries like Aotearoa. So, New Zealand both loses and gains skilled people, and where the balance settles depends very much on the foresight of our governments over time.

Many years ago, as an Australian doctoral graduate and tenured academic, I was in part drawn to move to New Zealand by the use of a certain technology here (zeolite catalysis in producing synthetic fuels). However, what the exodus of bright young minds in 2024 tells us, is that Aotearoa, in their estimation, now lacks innovative ambition and prospects compared to other destinations.

Many of the bright science or engineering graduates who we lose are aged 20 to 30 and likely feel their prospects of finding a job at home that effectively utilises their qualifications and matches their personal aspirations are now quite limited.

The next two to three decades will see new dominant economic sectors arise internationally and with them enduring waves of skilled high-technology employment. These waves will include renewable technologies (like solar, wind, hydro, tidal, e-transportation) as the world pursues the challenging target of zero-carbon, and as humanity experiences the increasingly disastrous impacts of climate change.

These new economic waves will create opportunities and well-paid jobs in countries that actively develop and promote this new era. Criteria for these jobs will include some core qualities: adaptability, interdisciplinarity and innovation.

Aotearoa must ensure it is heavily involved in these leading-edge sectors if it wishes to retain its most valuable resource – brilliant young graduates. And for our young people feeling disillusioned with the seeming indifference of their elders, renewables, space technology and other sectors are likely to provide more certainty, excitement and commitment to humanity.

Ralph Cooney ONZM FRSNZ is an emeritus professor of chemical sciences, Faculty of Science.