Inverse transference of technology: concept and main characteristics

Abstract

The problem of the brain drain is not new. Nevertheless it is in the sixties, beginning of the seventies, that the phenomenon reaches a more significant and worrying dimension. It is this dimension that justified the appearance, in the last decade, of a research vector that analyzes this drain as a processus of transference of capacities and resources from the developing countries to the developed ones. Henceforth its current designation of inverse transference of technology. Under different points of view it assumes an indisputable interest the characterization and evaluation of such migratory flow of high qualified personnel that, up to now, have essentially gone to the USA, the UK and Canada. The present article belongs to the framework of a larger research on the human development and the tecnological development in the developing countries carried on by the author. It includes, in first place, a delimitation of concepts and an approach to the main methodological issues. Then one analyzes the characteristics of this kind of migratory flow, presenting an estimation of the total flow, its evolution and perspectives, professional traits and main origins and destinations. The countries having an emigation of experts are mainly placed in Asia (India, Pakistan and Philippines) and Latin America. The professions with more propensions towards emigration have been «doctors and surgeons» and «engineers and scientists». In a second article one will evaluate, in terms of capital, this inverse transference of tecnology and resources.