Migration of health workers and health of international migrants: framework for bridging some knowledge disjoints between brain drain and brawn drain

Abstract

A paradox in knowledge management paradigms is posed: that leading to a dichotomy between factor-endowment and factor-use in the health sector of any given country. While investment in acquiring health knowledge embodied in overseas health workers from other countries could lead to better health and therefore higher productivity of the native workforce in the developed North countries, immigration of overseas non-health-workers, particularly those at the lower end of the skill spectrum, could neutralise that advantage if their health and therefore productivity is allowed to wither away. For the developing South countries, this adds a new question in the policy debate on brain drain – whether ‘drain’ of knowledge for the origin country as defined in terms of loss of benefits to the people physically left behind within its sovereign geographical territory, or a more inclusive and wider definition of ‘drain’ of knowledge for its people irrespective of their physical location in a globalised and interconnected world. The latter definition could have significant implications for bridging our knowledge disjoints between health policies involving migrants and migration policies involving health workers.