

Beware The Reverse Brain Drain To India And China - edw519
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/17/beware-the-reverse-brain-drain-to-india-and-china/

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aarghh
I fit squarely into the (Indian) demographic they refer to in the article. My
wife and I are pretty clear we will return to India in the next couple of
years, and have started planning for the transition. In our case the decision
is really an emotional one - we identify with India, and see no reason to
change that. The latter clause would not have been true for many in the past
since there was a much greater disparity in the opportunities present in the
two countries then.

Having said that, the energy in India is quite palpable. There is a sense of
possibility that is very compelling, despite all the barriers that still
exist. So I don't think I'm going to regret the decision from the perspective
of personal growth either.

~~~
scorpion032
Welcome for a huge opportunity, at Hyderabad, or Pune (as the article says).

Or is it going to be Bangalore?

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geebee
This is a reasonable article, and Vivek Wadhwa is certainly entitle to express
an opinion, but I do strongly object to his statement that "xenophobes will
cheer" these findings.

He didn't quite claim that the only people who might disagree with him are
xenophobes, but I do think he implies it.

People who have read my posts on hn are probably aware that I take a less
enthusiastic view of the high tech visa programs, especially the H1B. I resent
the implication that this makes me a xenophobe, as I absolutely believe that a
healthy, substantial percentage of foreign nationals at our universities and
in our high tech work force is without question a good and positive thing. But
I think we pushed it to the point where these visas were used by high tech as
a crutch, and allowed engineering careers to slowly become uncompetitive with
law, mba, medicine, and so forth (a RAND institute study recently confirmed
this, suggesting that the "low interest of US students in science/engineering
will reverse when pay and other work conditions improve" (yes, I'm
paraphrasing)

I'm not as optimistic, because you can't just revive these professions once
they are decimated.. Americans were deterred from engineering to the point
where they lost all interest, and these visa programs were the only way to get
students. But guess what? The day will come (and soon, it appears) where we
can offer as many visas and green cards as we like, but we won't find any
takers.

Eventually, someone has to recognize that it wasn't wise to allow Americans to
become a small minority in american engineering ms/ph.d programs, because
nobody is more likely to stay in the US.

~~~
anamax
My objection to H1Bs is that they're not used to benefit the US. I think that
they should be used to encourage brain-drain to the US.

I think that it's reasonable to ask whether America should pay to educate
folks who won't stay here and contribute.

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uk12345
The statistic of people moving into senior management on moving 'home'
suggests that companies in developing economies feel that they need American
trained executives to compete with American companies.

So all this might mean is that middle managers in US companies are being
automatically promoted into senior jobs in foreign companies because those
companies feel insecure. This is great for the bank balance of those people
but doesn't necessarily mean a great deal for the company.

It's also not a new phenomena - having a 'BtA' (Been to America) used to be
almost a requirement for promotion in UK academia or medicine. It didn't lead
to a huge amount of innovation in the NHS.

~~~
eugenejen
At the same time, when economy of China/India has enough domestic demands to
sustain itself, the need for U.S. trained managers will decline. For those
middle managers, betting the growth of domestic markets and starting to learn
the market from now on also plays a factor.

~~~
uk12345
I don't think that it is necessarily a need for US trained managers - I just
think that some fairly average Indians and Chinese middle managers working in
the US have seen that they can leverage their 'American Experience' into a
better job back home.

Rather than a reverse brain drain - it could just be the Dilbert principle.

------
tokenadult
"When we asked what was better about the U.S. than home, 54% of Indian and 43%
of Chinese said that total financial compensation for their previous U.S.
positions was better than at home. Health-care benefits were also considered
somewhat better in the United States by 51 percent of Chinese respondents,
versus 21 percent who thought it was better in their home country. (Indian
respondents were split more evenly on this)."

The article goes on to note that since returnees were surveyed, the survey
results necessarily are biased toward the opinions of persons who thought
going back to their native country had better trade-offs than staying in the
United States. Did the survey not have any questions about national
governance, democracy, or pervasive social problems in each country? Do such
high-tech workers (the ones who return to the native countries or the ones who
stay abroad) have no opinions on such issues?

I'll note that I don't think one would call this phenomenon a "reverse brain
drain" unless people like me who grew up in the United States and who have
lived abroad previously decide in large numbers to settle abroad permanently.
The United States still enjoys net inward migration, and many tens of
thousands of the immigrants who arrive to live permanently in the United
States are still highly capable workers who could live nearly anywhere in the
world if they so chose.

~~~
eugenejen
To some degrees, U.S. administrations after 9/11 act closer to administrations
in India and China on issues on governance and immigrations. Besides, when a
person grew up in an environment that stresses making money fast and first,
ignoring and exploiting government corruptions, those advantages of U.S.
democracy doesn't matter much to them.

Most of the Chinese and Indians "brains" in U.S are from families with
privileges. Although paychecks are fatter in U.S for them, they have better
social networks/relationships inherited from parents to exploit opportunities
in booming China and India economies.

Globalization has been enabling higher growth in GDP in India/China than U.S.
Let's imagine that you are in an economy that grows at 10% per year and you
are born in the class with privileges, power and social network. It means the
chance to double your assets in 3 to 5 years is very possible as long as you
know whom to make deals.

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chanux
And I noticed that India tops the Google trends for both startups and
hackernews.

<http://www.google.com/trends?q=startups>

<http://www.google.com/trends?q=hackernews>

~~~
lkozma
That is true for most programming related terms. I think Google trends ranks
by the percentage within total queries from a country. If in India people use
Google from every IT company but it is less widespread in all households than
in the US, that alone explains this bias.

~~~
scorpion032
But then I dont think Google trends ranks by the percentage within total
queries from the country.

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miked
_And sure, I know the xenophobes are going to cheer my findings. They believe
that foreign workers take American jobs away. But a growing body of evidence
indicates that skilled foreign immigrants create jobs for Americans and boost
our national competitiveness._

That's a bit of bait-and-switch. The concern shared by 86% of Americans is
over illegal immigrants that take low-skill jobs away from Americans
(particularly black Americans in the cities, where this is a huge and
underreported issue), commit crimes at a disproportionate rate, and consume
social services to the point that a number of US hospitals have had to close
down due to non-paying illegals.

In the third sentence it's suddenly about "skilled" legal foreign workers,
which is rarely the focus of the "xenophobes" (nice ad hominem!) These are two
entirely different issues.

I should add that I'm married to a Chinese woman with an MD and an MS degree.
Whenever I've raised the issue of living in China she stomps it down right
quick. OTOH, her best friend's son when back after getting his degree b/c of
the opportunities and he's doing great.

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DanielBMarkham
There's a lot of spin in this article.

The first part with all the stats? Something like only 27% of Indians with
Visas wanted to return, yet the article cites this as an indication that "it's
not a visa issue". In general, the first part is entirely self-selected, as
the article admits.

We then move to Indian students, who presumably haven't been here for long and
haven't had all those jobs from the first part of the article. So it's an
entirely different demographic.

If you're going to hang out with a group that wants stats to show large
numbers of citizens returning home that's fine, but don't do it to the point
that the information you are sharing is tainted (or worse, slanted)

I'm happy we have immigrants here doing IT work, although I worry about taking
the best and brightest from other societies. So I'm happy also if some of them
want to return home. Any kind of cultural mixing -- whether by new immigrants
coming here or old ones returning home -- is a good thing for everybody
involved.

But this article is not such a good source of information

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c00p3r
Why not? India is obviously growing, China is growing, while US.. You know.

~~~
catzaa
I was under the impression that some Southern States in the USA grows quite
qiuckly. Is this true or not?

~~~
tomjen2
They might be, but they are properly too conservative to support a startup
culture.

~~~
ido
I think North Carolinians might disagree.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
As would some Virginians, Floridians, and Texans.

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fnid
_How many planned to return to India? I was shocked to see more than three-
quarters of the audience raise their hands._

Does this mean permanently? It _could_ mean for vacation.

~~~
bbgm
Anecdotal evidence for sure, but a lot of my friends, especially those with
kids are thinking about heading back. In the past they felt that they would be
giving too much career-wise if they did so, but with that barrier going away
all the other advantages of heading back become very tempting (family,
lifestyle, culture, etc)

