Highly Skilled Migration from Albania: An Assessment of Current Trends and the Ways Ahead.
Abstract
By making use of qualitative and quantitative data collected in Albania in 2006 as well as quantitative data derived from a data bank established by CESS in collaboration with the Soros Foundation over 1998-1999 and 2003-2004, we hope to contribute towards filling the existing gap on knowledge of the brain drain through migration of highly skilled workers from Albania. This paper is organised as follows. Section 2 provides a summary of the existing debate on the economic literature concerning migration of highly skilled workers from developing countries. Section 3 first briefly reviews the pattern and chronology of Albanian emigration since 1990, before looking specifically at the emigration of the highly skilled. Section 4 presents the results obtained from analysing the information collected by our team in 2006 as well as CESS' data bank. This section is divided into two parts: the first explains the methodology employed for data collection; and the second presents the results. Section 5, based on the findings of the survey and examples of encouraging experiences from other countries, discusses a number of channels through which Albania can turn its brain drain into brain gain. The last section concludes and suggests some of the areas where research would involve a high payoff in terms of policy recommendations.
Citation
Working Paper T-25, Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty, Brighton, UK, 34 pp.
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