Brain Drain in Finland; A real Threat or a myth and its impact on Finland’s R&D capabilities

Abstract

The phenomenon of ‘Brain Drain’ or ‘Human Capital Flight’ is actively discussed in Finland recently. It is the phenomenon in which highly educated and skilled people leave the country where they attained their education and skills. The official statistics and data show that it is an alarming situation with every passing year in Finland. The phenomenon is widely observed in all sectors, but the most affected sectors are research-based fields, natural sciences, biosciences, humanities, anthropology, psychology, statistics, and core-engineering fields. However, is this really a brain drain phenomenon or something else? The focus of this paper is to explore the brain drain phenomenon’s existence in Finland based on officially available data. The paper also investigates the main causes of brain drain, its future effects on Finland’s R&D capabilities and the Finnish economy. This is a review article about the brain drain phenomenon based on previous studies and official quantitative data from Statistics Finland. This paper serves as the basis for the development of a research instrument to further analyze the situation in future research.