Brain Drain from Türkiye: Register Evidence of Non‐Returning Graduates

Abstract

Globalisation of labour has led to the migration of skilled workforce; known as ‘brain drain’. To our knowledge, this paper is the first study which analyses brain drain from Türkiye through administrative register evidence of non-return bachelors’ degree graduates. The analysis micro dataset in the paper is based completely upon administrative registers of public institutions of Republic of Türkiye. These public institutions including Ministry of Interior, Directorate-General for Population and Citizenship Affairs for residence abroad data, and Council of Higher Education of Türkiye (CoHE) for higher education data. The results were analysed through descriptive statistics. The results indicate that brain drain rate of bachelor’s degree graduates is 3.23 per cent in the year 2020. The rate is calculated through considering 55,918 non-return graduates out of total number of 1,730,955 graduates. The most popular destinations to brain drain from Türkiye are the United States of America with 22.4 per cent, Germany with 14.3 per cent and the United Kingdom with 11.6 per cent. When it comes to gender distribution, brain drain rate of males is 3.62 per cent and it is 2.84 per cent for females. The results indicated that brain drain rate of bachelor’s degree graduates increased more than 50% between the years 2011 and 2020. Therefore, future research is need to investigate the reason behind the high increase rates in brain drain from Türkiye. Residence abroad data used in this paper is based on the statements of Turkish bachelor’s degree graduates reside abroad. Therefore, the actual number may even be higher than the figures here.