
Brain Drain Within the EU? - siberianbear
https://www.statista.com/chart/15528/eu-scientists-by-location/
======
ciguy
I'm living in Italy at the moment, and I can watch the brain drain happening
in real time. Every single university student I know here is looking to go to
the UK or Germany when they graduate, almost without exception.

I can't blame them at all, taxes are excessive and bureaucracy is excruciating
here. Finding even a temporary job usually requires family connections, so the
dumbest people with connections end up as managers while the smartest get put
into lower positions. It's a great place to live if you have money, but a
horrible place to be for smart young people without lots of social/family
clout.

~~~
arximboldi
I am a Spaniard living in Germany... part of that very same problem. Anyways,
"taxes and bureaucracy" is not the problem of the of the european south. In
fact, taxes and bureaucracy are _both_ way higher in Germany.

The problems are more complex and historical. The EU economic crisis have been
abused by right-wingers to argue that we have a too heavy social system. In
fact, the demolition of the social system in the south is precisely preventing
it from really leaving the crisis. I want higher taxes if it comes, for
example, with free university, like in Germany.

~~~
ericd
From the outside, the bureaucracy certainly seems like a big part of the
problem. I've idly thought about moving to one of those countries and starting
a company there because they are _so nice_. But one of the big things that
kills those ideas are the horror stories about the horrible bureacracy, with
non-deterministic results despite the same inputs. Starting a business is hard
enough without spending time dealing with that kind of BS. If they were able
to get their houses in order and make running a business there simpler, I
imagine that many people would be more willing to start them there. Until
then, it's a nice place to vacation before returning somewhere else to get
work done.

~~~
KSteffensen
Come to Denmark. It's been rated in the top 5 world wide on the 'ease of doing
business' since 2012 and ahead of the USA since 2015. [1]

Pretty much all bureaucracy happens online and my experience as an individual,
is that it's minimal. I've never tried running a business , so I can't say
anything on the bureaucracy there.

We don't have that nice Southern France climate, though.

[1]:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ease_of_doing_business_index](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ease_of_doing_business_index)

~~~
petre
Denmark has crazy high taxes. I know several cases of people moving to
Switzerland and other EU countries to escape the tax burden.

~~~
ciumonk
And a crazy good social safety net. If you're having any sort of
difficulty(ranging from depression to bankruptcy), you'll get adequate state
support(income, subsidised housing and healthcare) for a long time. I wonder
why more people don't start businesses there, given that it's seldom fatal to
risk and fail..

~~~
gurumeditations
I’d guess because the people who really have the money to start a business
aren’t poor enough to worry about having to live on the street if it fails.
Also, perhaps the strength of the safety net makes people feel less of a need
to be entrepreneurial.

------
m00dy
Turkey has now a great exodus ever in its history. Most of the educated Turks
are now trying to abandon their beloved country. Recent stats indicate that
top 4 countries they are going are UK, Germany, France, Netherlands [1]. If
you see any of these precious guys, just say hi to them. They will speak to
you.

[1]: [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-
europe-42433668](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42433668)

~~~
egeozcan
I've been living in Germany since almost 10 years (I think I should celebrate
this?) and I've met many people who also migrated from Turkey, but the
overwhelming majority (me included) are not scientists, but many of them have
engineering degrees. Just an anecdote, yes, but I've moved around a lot and
now I'm living in a city with 25% student population.

~~~
mseidl
Hello my fellow Turkey Gerkey. I'm half German and half Turkish.

------
jsnell
I don't understand how these graphs show brain drain, there a bunch of other
explanations. For example maybe a bigger proportion of Germans get an
appropriate university degree than Italians. Or maybe the people getting an
engineering degree in Italy can't get a job in that field, and end up working
on something else but not emigrating. Or the difference comes from non-EU
scientists/engineers preferentially moving to UK or Germany when immigrating
to the EU.

To show brain drain you really need to look at the migration flows, not a
static snapshot of the current populations.

~~~
ff_
Italian engineer here. The brain drain is real and the graphs represent quite
accurately what's happening to me and my peers. (It might be my bubble of
course, but hey, now we have this legit-looking snapshot in the article)

~~~
ciguy
I'm American but living in Italy right now, and it's really sad talking to Uni
students. Every single one of them that I know wants to get out of Italy as
soon as possible after graduating. They all feel (Probably correctly) that
there's simply no opportunity for them here. The Nespotism and horrible
bureaucracy along with excessive taxes (With not much value provided in
return) are crushing the soul of Italy.

------
village-idiot
Random thought: the UK has the advantage of speaking English.

First, that makes it easier for them to pull in other Europeans, since english
is commonly the second language of most other Europeans. Second they can also
pull in American and Canadian expats much easier than anyone else in Europe.

Germany is more interesting to me. German is not exactly the worlds most
common first or second language. So this is more evidence of their complete
and utter domination within the eu.

~~~
egeozcan
Contrary to what most people believe, I see that native English speakers can
learn German rather easily (with a pretty distinct accent, which I really like
:)).

Your point stands though, as they usually don't know this before they actually
start learning, so they must have other reasons.

~~~
jayalpha
"Contrary to what most people believe, I see that native English speakers can
learn German rather easily"

I doubt that. While English is part of the West Germanic languages, there are
huge grammatical differences. I assume it would be much easier for a Polish or
Russian Person to learn German than for an English.

The sentence "Man bites Dog" and "Dog bites Man" has a different meaning in
English, due to to position of the noun. In German, both is possible.

"Der Hund beisst den Mann" and

"Den Mann beisst der Hund" has the same meaning.

Declension makes the word order in German very flexible.

~~~
sverige
As a native English speaker who studied German, Russian, and Polish, German
was _much_ easier to learn than the Slavic languages. The case system is
smaller than Russian or Polish, and there are far more cognates which makes
learning vocabulary much easier. Also, articles (e.g., "a" and "the") are
notoriously difficult for non-native speakers of English, but German is
similar enough.

Learning cases is a little hard, and the silly capitalization rules are a
hindrance, but probably the most difficult thing in German for most English
speakers is waiting for the damn verb to make its appearance. It's harder to
guess what it will be than it is for native German speakers.

I would guess that learning German would be easier than English for a native
speaker of a Slavic language, though, precisely because syntax plays such a
critical role in English, which has only the barest vestiges of a case system
remaining. My Russian friends in particular make some amusing errors with word
order sometimes, but I think it's charming.

Edit: and for the example given, "Man bites dog" and "Dog bites man," what is
required is a verb change, perhaps a couple of articles, and correct
capitalization (unless it's a news headline, in which case it's fine). So,
"Dog bites Man" can be written as "The man was bitten by a dog" with the same
meaning. English verbs are also hard for non-native speakers, though.

~~~
_delirium
I guess some of this is also, to what level do you need to learn German? Some
of the parts of German grammar that are difficult for English speakers can be
mostly avoided by just phrasing things differently. Basic use of cases is
necessary, but some of the rules around compound sentences can be skipped at
first by just using simpler sentences. If what you're after is a reasonable
conversational/email level of German, that's enough for many things, and you
can always learn more constructs later. If you want to be a professor in the
humanities and need to write/speak a formal academic level of German, that's
different, but that's probably not the common case for HN readers.

------
rossdavidh
I know it's not the same, culturally, but there is something similar that
happens within the U.S. Places like Texas, New York, and California have
historically had lots of scientists and engineers move there from places like
Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Wyoming. This is also true of computer programmers. Of
course, within the U.S. it is not generally as noticed or lamented, but
probably it is harder to get a scientific or engineering hub started when most
of the locals who are interested in that sort of thing keep moving away.

Again, not saying it doesn't have different causes and consequences in the EU,
just that it's not totally different, either.

~~~
iguy
Something similar has long happened even within EU countries.

Gregory Clark was giving talks about historical data on this in England,
looking roughly for signals of people who were born in the north, got rich,
and tended to move south -- as many did.

[https://voxeu.org/article/decline-northern-
england-1780-2018](https://voxeu.org/article/decline-northern-
england-1780-2018)

He goes so far as to claim that this migration has been strong enough to
explain much of the present economic differences between north & south.

------
tobbe2064
I doubt the situation in Spain, Italy and France can compare to the one in
Romania, Poland or any of the other eastern members where it's not just the
scientist and engineers but also the doctors, nurses teachers etc etc that
have much better prospects abroad

~~~
markatkinson
You should see South Africa. It is more of a stampede. Everyone I know has
either left or is trying. Literally ten out of the twelve friends I have are
either in UK, Aus or US.

The ones still in ZA are clammering to get out.

~~~
tormeh
Have heard similar anecdotes from Iranians. Those mostly go to the US, though.

------
programLyrique
It would be interesting to see the percentages for scientists and researchers
independently.

For France, for instance, researchers' wages are not very high. A lecturer
typically starts with about 2115 euros per month before taxes typically for
instance. On the contrary, I think that the salary of engineers is competitive
with the ones in the UK and Germany.

~~~
JPLeRouzic
> A lecturer typically starts with about 2115 euros per month

Indeed this a low wage considering the cost of life, but two third of French
earn less than that [0].

A few days ago a statistic about middle class in France was considering 1200
euros as representative of French middle class, even if this is roughly the
legal minimum wage.

[0] [https://www.inegalites.fr/Salaire-etes-vous-riche-ou-
pauvre](https://www.inegalites.fr/Salaire-etes-vous-riche-ou-pauvre)

------
binbag
This is interesting. I'm UK native and my feeling was that the UK is
struggling to develop more engys/scienstists. But other countries are
evidently struggling even more. I also thought that Germany's contribution
would be way more than the UK's, but that's not the case.

~~~
user5994461
To be honest, there aren't that many jobs to fill and there wouldn't be much
point in having more graduates.

Also, UK universities are expensive and not particularly good. UK Graduates
have to compete against the cream of the crop of European graduates who had
free education and are desperate to flee their country.

~~~
binbag
I don't understand your point. The UK contains the largest proportion of STEM
workers in Europe, equalled only by Germany, and the UK contains some of the
best unis in the world.

~~~
user5994461
The first point is self explanatory. There is no shortage of STEM graduates
and a limited amount of jobs. Why would would you want to train many more?

Every big developed country has some of the best universities in the world.
The UK is not any better than what can be found in Germany, France,
Switzerland, Poland or Romania.

I guess what I am trying to get at is that there is no struggling as you said.
It's the opposite in fact, there are way too many engineers/scientists trained
across Europe. They can't find jobs where they come from and they are forced
to move to London or Germany.

~~~
growlist
> The UK is not any better than what can be found in Germany, France,
> Switzerland, Poland or Romania.

Proof? US dominates global rankings, with UK pretty much second.

~~~
user5994461
The US dominates rankings made by the US. How surprising.

~~~
growlist
You are the one that made the claim, and thus the burden is on you to back it
up.

------
marmaduke
French salaries for postdocs and engineers in public research are fairly under
average. Still we have plenty of Italians in our lab

~~~
borroka
The Italian postdoc salaries are comparable to the French ones and there are
more opportunities in France than in Italy for some Italians, e.g. those that
are not in the line of succession to the throne. When I was doing research in
Italy, I never met a French scientist employed in any lab.

~~~
hectormalot
Anecdotally I'd say that research salaries in Italy seem quite low. I did an
internship together with an Italian student in Switzerland. He had a full-time
offer in Italy for what was seen as a good salary. Still, he made
substantially more as an intern in Switzerland than he would make as a
scientist in Italy.

~~~
borroka
Living in Switzerland is much more expensive than living in Italy (housing
especially), so salaries are more or less adjusted accordingly to the cost of
living. Then, there are also some top Universities in Switzerland.

When I was doing my postdoc ~ 7-10 years ago, I was making 1500 euros after
taxes.

~~~
icebraining
_Living in Switzerland is much more expensive than living in Italy (housing
especially), so salaries are more or less adjusted accordingly to the cost of
living._

A relative adjustment might still mean a large absolute difference, though; I
don't know about Italy and Switzerland, but even paying double for a house in
Luxembourg compared to an equivalent in Portugal, and not earning double, I
still had more money at the end of the month.

~~~
borroka
It is correct. But saying A pays more than B and not factoring in the cost of
living is not a useful exercise.

------
rdm_blackhole
Its no surprise, in France 50% of the population makes less than 1850 euros
net per month. Try to live on that when your rent is close to 800 euros for a
1 bedroom apartment(not even in Paris).

That's why I left! Plus the social services and public transport is utter crap
with strikes, breakdown, constant unreliability. Government employees don't
care about your issues.

No wonder that people are living.

------
craigmorrison
This is what happens when you have freedom of movement over a log period of
time. People are going to love where the opportunities are, especially if it’s
made easy. I bet a similar graph for the US would show people moving to states
like CA and NY.

------
zanybear
I think this chart would be better explained when correlated with investment
in R&D by country

------
londons_explore
What is the definition of scientist or engineer?

A lot of people with science or engineering degrees go on to careers which
don't make use of what they have learned in their degree (for example
finance), and instead use the degree on the CV as an indicator of 'probably a
smart person'.

In countries without that effect, people might not see the need to get an
engineering degree to get those same jobs, and instead prove they are a great
candidate in another way.

------
overkalix
The data is very, very weak. I think that most scientists and engineers from
Spain, Italy and Greece have similar experiences to mine, though. I got my
degree and masters in one of the above. I left to work in northern Europe. I
came back home because I got a PhD grant. The chances of obtaining a stable
job as researcher or teacher are not great. Doesn't take a lot of imagination
to guess what my move will be once I am a doctor.

------
expertentipp
Yes absolutely, e.g. Italy and Germany have exactly the same demographic
situation (post-WWII boom, their children, and the third wave not happening),
their social and pension systems face the same challenges. Now compare number
of capable, production age, employed Italians living long-term in Germany and
vice versa. The same problems will mature in Poland within 5-10 years.

------
whatupmd
Juxatapose this with number of multi-national or us-based companies in each EU
member and we might be on to something.

------
borroka
The article is not clear; I did not look at the raw data, but the expectation
of parity between population percent and percent of scientists/engineers is a
hypothesis itself. It is well known that Italy produced far fewer people with
advanced degree per capita than many other EU countries.

~~~
borroka
Interesting downvote

------
ggm
Olivetti was a byword for industrial design in the sixties and seventies.
Amazing styling.

I know someone who did years of study in the wool business she said fellow
interns would slaughter small children for a job in the Italian fashion
industry.

What goes around comes around. TEFL teachers get jobs in Italy...

~~~
tomatocracy
Specialist manufacturing remains a very important part of the Italian economy
- eg see this article about Beretta and the broader gun industry

[https://www.politico.eu/interactive/in-pictures-italian-
vill...](https://www.politico.eu/interactive/in-pictures-italian-village-that-
makes-worlds-guns-firearms/)

------
dmos62
I like how this gives evidence to some kind of latin-germanic divide of the
south-western Europe, or what we usually just call Western Europe. Apologies
in advance for superficial labeling.

~~~
barry-cotter
Either don’t apologise or don’t do it.

~~~
dmos62
I apologise, because while I hold it accurate, hence I use it, the labeling is
superficial. "He's this, he's that" is not something you enjoy throwing
around.

You either think there's nothing to apologise for, in which case you're just
criticizing my manner of conversation, or you think the labeling is inaccurate
or demeaning, in which case you fail to demonstrate how. In either case,
brevity and directness of your criticism don't mix well.

~~~
barry-cotter
I think that you think it’s accurate but demeaning. I value the truth more
than feelings. If you value feelings more lie. Lie unhesitatingly. Lie with no
apologies. Lie with vehemence. Lie and work to destroy the lives of those who
love the truth.

If you value truth more work to expose the truth.

But whatever you do don’t apologise. If you’re going to try to destroy
people’s life’s work own it. If you’re going to try and bury an opinion
because it has bad consequences without regard for whether it’s true or not
own it, know it. Those who follow you may believe they’re burying a lie but
you should know you’re doing your best to bury something you believe to be
true.

But don’t piss on the people whose lives and beliefs you work to erase by
apologising. Show them the respect of working to destroy what they believe in
openly.

------
timwaagh
maybe the commission could prepare some 'tariffs' on the 'export' of 'grey
matter' to soon-to-be not-EU countries. just saying.

------
sgt101
I'm in the UK and recruiting junior (just postgrad) folks into AI applied
research. Pm me if interested.

~~~
Mielly
Good job asking for PMs when it's not possible, and with no contact email. Is
the offer legit?

~~~
sgt101
Oops - apologies. I forgot how HN works.

Mail me at simon.2.thompson@gmail.com - it's legit, it's in Suffolk, I'm not
competing with Google or Facebook for wages but pay ahead of EPSRC and it is
research - applied research, but still research.

------
clubm8
To be fair, isn't this a problem in any federation?

When we send people to Alabama, we're not sending our finest...

------
siberianbear
tl;dr: It looks like there no opportunity for Italian scientists and
engineers: they're all moving to Germany and the UK.

~~~
snaky
They will fix it European way.

> Support from the European Union could come handy in helping Italian and
> Spanish entrepreneurs overcome the gap with more developed parts of Europe,
> both in terms of funding and networking opportunities. Indeed, as for the
> former, both nations are among the first beneficiaries, in the last two
> years, of the funds earmarked by the EU for innovation and technological
> research in the Horizon 2020 program.

> Such instruments, however, while helpful, are not by any means perfect. “I
> think there is a lot of European money getting lost in the process between
> the people who is getting the grants and the entrepreneurs,” the vice
> president of the Spanish Startups Association, Carmen Bermejo, says. “The
> ones who know how to apply and get the European grants are sometimes not the
> same ones that know how to help the startups and deliver value. This is even
> worse if we speak about the European funds for regional cohesion, that
> depend a lot on personal contacts and relationships,” she adds.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2016/07/06/how...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2016/07/06/how-
building-a-stronger-startup-ecosystem-could-help-tackle-youth-unemployment-in-
italy-and-spain/)

~~~
borroka
The effect of these ERA (European Research Agency) initiatives is zero. EU
likes to throw money at problems without following up; for an enlightening
example one can look at the Marie Curie fellowship. Money thrown at researcher
for 2 or 3 years of research in EU or outside of EU institutions with zero
follow up at the end of the fellowship. As far as I know, the vast majority of
MC fellows leave academia and research at the end of the fellowship.

~~~
kmlx
It's the same in other fields. Eastern European countries currently suffer
from a plague of politicians and special interests that funnel EU funds
straight to either their own personal bank accounts or to close friends and
companies. [0] [1]

[0] [https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-
report/hungary-...](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-
report/hungary-orban-balaton/) [1] [https://ec.europa.eu/anti-
fraud/sites/antifraud/files/olaf_r...](https://ec.europa.eu/anti-
fraud/sites/antifraud/files/olaf_report_2017_en.pdf)

~~~
borroka
In the example I was describing above, the money goes to researchers (I was
one of the recipients), but since there are no follow-ups, such as some
support for researchers that finish the fellowship and are looking for jobs,
the downstream effect of the Marie Curie actions is close to 0. You would
think that a change of action would swiftly follow the analysis of data,
especially after ~ 20 years of Marie Curie actions, but the EU Soviet-style
bureaucracies are just interested in their survival and the appearance of
effective action.

