Should EAs help employees in the developing world move to the West?

By WillieG @ 2025-01-21T19:40 (+29)

Roughly a decade ago, I spent a year in a developing country working on a project to promote human rights. We had a rotating team of about a dozen (mostly) brilliant local employees, all college-educated, working alongside us. We invested a lot of time and money into training these employees, with the expectation that they (as members of the college-educated elite) would help lead human rights reform in the country long after our project disbanded. I got nostalgic and looked up my old colleagues recently. Every single one is living in the West now. A few are still somewhat involved in human rights, but most are notably under-employed (a lawyer washing dishes in a restaurant in Virginia, for example).

I'm torn on this. I'm sure my former colleagues are happier on an individual level. Their human rights are certainly better respected in the West, and the salaries are better. But the potential good that they could have done in their home country is (probably) substantially higher. On my way out, I signed letters of recommendation for each employee, which I later found out were used to pad visa applications. (I am perhaps feeling a bit of guilt over contributing to a developing country's "brain drain" as a result.) After I left, there was a blowup between two of the Western employees over whether to continue supporting emigration. The TL;DR of the disagreement was "It's the nice thing to do, and refusing to support emigration could reduce morale and our ability to hire go-getters" versus "We can't have lasting impact if our ringers keep leaving."

I'm curious about what other EAs have seen in their orgs. Is there any kind of organizational policy that exists on matters like this?

NickLaing @ 2025-01-22T05:04 (+7)

I think this is a huge and under-recognised problem  with migration - that the very best people who could have made the biggest difference transforming their country end up leaving, mostly doing far less transformative and "cruxy" work in western countries. I live in Uganda and have seen the same phenomenon. 

The strongest pro-immigration argument is usually that we should support migration because remittances are so important and the good done by that can overcome the harms of "brain drain". If the very best people leave though, I think the negative effect can be enormous.

Also see my comment here on this article by Lauren, along very similar lines.

"The best people leave, people that could be innovating, inspiring, leading and starting the best businesses that could grow the country. When you skim off the top 1%, you can "replace" them by training others, but you can't replace their natural brilliant traits that could have led them to transform their countries."

https://www.laurenpolicy.com/p/why-brain-drain-isnt-something-we

This issue was also discussed a little in the comments about my wee piece here.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/9TnGxtSjjdpeufaqs/is-nigerian-nurse-emigration-really-a-win-win-critique-of-a

NobodyInteresting @ 2025-01-23T17:37 (+14)

Nick I have one comment every three days (I have been a baaaad forum member) but I am here to answer your rebuttal honestly and truthfully.)

I come from a fairly rich background, in my country I would be in the top 0.5%, but I come from a developing country, that means that while I can afford pretty much everything, everyone around me is living on that edge between living and surviving, some are barely surviving as well.

My father was one of the first people to bring USAID donations to my country, specifically water treatment donations, and they built several water treatment plants that cleaned water to a drinkable level, our specification system is fairly outdated and I am unsure about the international ones. But like the whole course of water treatment. Those plants today are abandoned, there were not enough funds or the funds got mismanaged and those facilities are now rotting. My father moved in Western Europe in the early 2010s, because he was so depressed with the situation here, when he left, he had a company here that was running fairly well, we were doing great, he went to western Europe to cut grass and start all over again because he was done with how things were done here.

I am not as depressed as him, but in the past year I spent over 500 hours trying to deal with littering and improper waste disposal by local companies in my city. I invested my own money, time and health, because roaming dump sites is not the safest thing to do. In those 500 hours I have around 75 reports for various offences, out of those 75 reports the people in charge acted on 3 or 4.

For food safety, I have contacted my agency over 80 times, they have now blacklisted my number and don't return my mails because the chain I am reporting has every one of the inspectors in their pockets.

In university a grant was stolen from us (the students), albeit with my colleagues and it was not my idea originally, but I worked on writing that grant, I spent time and effort, only to have my faculty misappropriate the funds, submit a false report, and present a falsified research document that we did the research. We didn't even do any research, they probably manufactured the whole paper they presented.

Now tell me, why should I care about these people when they don't even give me the time of their day, I have spent countless of hours on civic engagement, trying to make this place a better place to live, only to get spit in my face by corrupt officials. Why not go to the west and be a plumber, at least I will get paid what I deserve and know that "hey I have some rights".

I am at a breaking point where I would rather be neck deep in shit in the west, than live leisurely here because it sucks. Also the job opportunities suck, being in agriculture, as an agronomist my salary would be near the minimum wage, while my software/engineering/any degree peers are way above that. It's not about the money it's about the recognition, although even if I decided to become a big time farmer, the main issues that I would face are pollution and corruption.

 

Sorry if this feels too raw and boring at times, I am a stream of consciousness on this platform and godspeed to you.

NickLaing @ 2025-01-24T06:59 (+3)

Thanks so so much for this insight and sharing, yes it's raw but not boring in the slightest and I think it's exactly the kind of thing we need to hear on the forum here. 

What do you think immigration policies should be from your country?

WillieG @ 2025-01-23T23:54 (+2)

Ouch that's rough. I honestly think every Westerner working in global poverty/health should have to spend a month living in a low-trust society. The corruption and nepotism/tribalism I saw every day were astonishing to my sheltered eyes. It makes me wonder how any overseas org can accurately assess their impact, given the challenges in tracking money and goods, and confirming if they actually make it to their intended recipients.

Ian Turner @ 2025-01-21T22:27 (+7)

This question was also discussed in this other forum post, and probably in some other posts that I can’t find. Why Brain Drain Isn't Something We Should Worry About

WillieG @ 2025-01-23T03:52 (+4)

Folks, I appreciate that this is an issue a lot of people are emotionally invested in. And I want to thank @NickLaing and @Tym for their substantive and carefully considered comments.

I do want to reiterate the question I asked at the end--Has anyone encountered formal policies (perhaps in HR?) about matters like this? 

NickLaing @ 2025-01-23T04:12 (+4)

I haven't and doubt you will but interested to hear if there are any examples!

crunk004 @ 2025-01-22T16:08 (+4)

I think not adopting policies or helping people to immigrate would be a very tough sell, given (my impression, at least) of the overwhelmingly strong evidence of immigration on quality of life and economic growth - I was under the impression that the evidence was pretty strong on the "brain drain=good" side, though I could be wrong. An important part of being EA is being evidence based, and I'd need to see evidence that brain drain is actually bad on net.

This also seems very morally problematic - "US passport for me but not for thee" doesn't seem like something I would be comfortable supporting ethically without very strong evidence otherwise. Forcing someone to work and live somewhere against their will seems really bad. I wouldn't want to be plucked up, moved to a developing country, be forced to work, and told I couldn't leave, and I'd encourage people to not do that to others as well.

Tym 🔸 @ 2025-01-21T22:14 (+4)

It's a very thoughtful set of questions! 

Firstly, I think you would be interested to know about Malengo which is a charity which is helping people in impoverished provinces in Uganda to enrol in German Universities and eventually settle there. They often seek out volunteers to mentor these propsective students, it's very rewarding. 

Re brain-drain I have 4 thoughts.

TLDR they are 

1) Lots of talent doesn't flourish in their home countries
2) Advocating for specific visa-pathways can give much more win-win opportunities for all involved
3) Many people go back to home countries when they have the choice/credible opportunity to do so
4) Moral argument, my strong passport is awesome, I have a right to have options as to where I live, others deserve it too

Long version:

1) Is it really a brain drain if talent would be counterfactually lost? For every ambitious underemployed dishwasher in the US theres likely many more people who were born in the wrong place, time and/or body/sexuality/religious family to ever have a fair opportunity to grow and make an impact.  Often it's simply 'brain allocation' and the remittances sent home can have a greater impact than if the immigrant would have not found a good role in the home country. 

2) Advocating for policies of specialised visa pathways can largely by win-win without brain draining effects. Let's say hyopthetical rich country has a shortage of nurses and a developing country has a over-supply in nursing graduates (rare scenario ik) / can really up the amount of trained nurses in a few years. A specialised visa-pathways can heavily benefit both countries. 

3) Often people will come back when given the chance. About half if not most of Polish nationals in the UK have left the country after 2018, largely back to Poland despite the UK still having a much larger GDP per capita. The UN predicts 1 million Syrians will return in the first ~7 months after the end of the civil war, in 14 years 6.7 million left the country, that's quite a significant fraction for such a short amout of time. Many people want to be at their original home country in the long-term (Of course the UN prediction may be wrong).  The perceived opportunities/ trajectories within countries as well as the cultural ties make people to come back.  

4) There's a moral argument here. My entire life was determined by my parent's freedom to move freely with European Union borders. Many of there peers did not make the same choice and stayed in Poland. It's excellent that they had the right to make that choice. I believe people in developing states also should have that right, and its the responsibilities of Governments to give them reasons to stay.

NickLaing @ 2025-01-22T05:07 (+4)

One quick response I have is that Poland is a bit of a straw man - much smaller numbers go back to very por countries like Nigeria.

Tym 🔸 @ 2025-01-22T09:51 (+5)

Yeah the quality of life in Poland is ahead of most of the world, and in most comparisons there's no equivalence in circumstances, The Poland vs developing economy GDP per capita differences range from ~10x (Nigeria) to 30x (Niger, CAR). 

I re-examined my Syria example and I think many of the returnees could feasibly be individuals with very poor economic prospects in their host countries—specifically, those in the bottom quartiles of incomes in Lebanon, Iraq, or Jordan, which collectively host 1.6 million Syrians. Some of these individuals may have also lived in camps, which total 275,000 people (though these two figures overlap). For them and those who have left in the past few months of fighting, returning to Syria could offer an opportunity to start better lives and they are likely to be the bulk of the 1 million returnees in the first 6 months.

My argument for returns was more focused on the idea that if these developing countries experience economic booms, people might choose to return there, even if the countries are still somewhat poorer. But this would be a more long-term consideration, its hard to predict and brain-drains by definition make this less likely to happen. Nevertheless, this scenario seems particularly relevant to modern South American examples, like Guyana, about 50% of Guyanese people are part of the diaspora. If Guyana's recent economic boom is sustained, well-redistributed, and if the government manages to defend their borders, (big asks I know) it could potentially bring many Guyanese back.

All the numbers are quite rough. 

D0TheMath @ 2025-01-22T16:44 (+1)

I think it seems pretty evil & infantilizing to force people to stay in their home country because you think they’ll do more good there. The most you should do is argue they’ll do more good in their home country than a western country, then leave it up to them to decide.

I will furthermore claim that if you find yourself disagreeing, you should live in the lowest quality of living country you can find, since clearly that is the best place to work in your own view.

Maybe I have more faith in the market here than you do, but I do think that technical & scientific & economic advancement do in fact have a tendency to not only make everywhere better, but permanently so. Even if the spread is slower than we’d like. By forcing the very capable to stay in their home country we ultimately deprive the world and the future from the great additions they may make given much better & healthier working conditions.

NickLaing @ 2025-01-22T19:32 (+11)

This is not a discussion about anyone forcing anyone to do anything (noone has suggested that), but the original question was about the degree we should potentially fund and support the best workers in our orgs to emigrate. This is a hugely important question, because from experience in Uganda with enough time and resources I could probably help almost any high level qualified and capable person to emigrate but is that really the best thing for me do?

As things stand every country in the world has huge restrictions on emigration, which does often "force" people to stay where they were born, something no one in this discussion thread has the power to do.

The most talented people from low income countries are often much better placed to improve up their own country than we are from richer countries, due to cultural knowledge and connections. In saying that I do agree that far more people from high income countries could be doing a lot of good living and working in low income countries.

Jason @ 2025-01-22T21:13 (+6)

Yes and no -- the only concrete thing I see @WillieG having done was "sign[ing] letters of recommendation for each employee, which I later found out were used to pad visa applications." 

I would find refusing to write a letter of recommendation on "brain drain" concerns to go beyond not funding emigration efforts. I'd view this as akin to a professor refusing to write a recommendation letter for a student because they thought the graduate program to which the student wanted to apply was a poor use of resources (e.g., underwater basketweaving). Providing references for employees and students is an implied part of the role, while vetoing the employee or student's preferences based on the employer's/professor's own views is not.

In contrast, I would agree with your frame of reference if the question were whether the EA employer should help fund emigration and legal fees, or so on.

NickLaing @ 2025-01-22T21:23 (+5)

Yep I completely agree with all that and would always write a letter for anyone! The kind of things he might be talking about I think are a bit more extreme like.

  • Funding people to masters courses especially at foreign universities.
  • Actively making connections with people in Western countries helping people get jobs and study opportunities there.

  • Helping people write really really good foreign visa and scholarship applications, putting a lot of time and effort into them and even potentially co-writing sections with people.

    I've done all these things to varying extents and am less inclined to do so now to the same extent given the questions of the OP.

Larks @ 2025-01-23T04:47 (+2)

Yes and no -- the only concrete thing I see @WillieG having done was "sign[ing] letters of recommendation for each employee, which I later found out were used to pad visa applications." 

Sounds like they did more than this, though the description is vague:

We invested a lot of time and money into training these employees, with the expectation that they (as members of the college-educated elite) would help lead human rights reform in the country long after our project disbanded.

Karthik Tadepalli @ 2025-01-23T05:32 (+4)

I think Jason is saying that the "support to emigrate" was limited to recommendations.

Larks @ 2025-01-23T15:27 (+2)

It sounds like if his org had expected mass emigration they'd have spent less time making other human capital investments as well though. 

Karthik Tadepalli @ 2025-01-23T16:59 (+2)

I don't understand this view. Would they want their initiative to be run by incompetent people? If not, in what world do they not train their staff? The fact that they also tacked on an expectation that they would not migrate does not mean that expectation was pivotal in their decision.

Larks @ 2025-01-23T20:22 (+2)

At this point I think we are reading tea leaves that the OP could easily clarify, but FWIW my interpritation was they invested more than they would have otherwise, e.g. in less specific training, because they thought this training was a secondary route to impact.

WillieG @ 2025-01-23T23:49 (+5)

Hey @Larks sorry for the delay. I wanted to touch base with one of my old colleagues to make sure I'm remembering everything correctly from 10+ years ago.

Yes, our plan did have a lot of weight on training key locals that we took on as employees (notably lawyers, but also a journalist and a few other "civil society" figures). I was involved in some of the hiring process, and we were very up front about wanting people who were committed for the long-term.

If we had known that the average person was going to get a visa and leave in a few years, I don't think we would have reduced the training investment, but would have tried to find a way to screen for people who would genuinely stick around. For example, we spent a lot of time stiff-arming a local government official's demands to hire his nephew. (Definitely a bad look for a human rights org to be doing nepotistic favors.) But apparently the official and his nephew are pretty firmly rooted in the country, so maybe it would've been an OK long-term investment? No easy answers I'm afraid. 

Larks @ 2025-01-24T02:47 (+3)

Thanks for clarifying!

Jason @ 2025-01-23T13:05 (+2)

Yes, that's correct.

WillieG @ 2025-01-23T13:30 (+1)

From my rationality-married-with-emotion-and-values human brain, I agree with you. Evil indeed. 

That said, I can see a dystopian future where Hyper-Rationalist Bot makes all decisions, and decides that "the greatest good for the greatest number" is best served by keeping human capital in the developing world, using the EA logic that capital in the developing world creates more utility than the same capital in the developed world. (In fact, HRB thinks we should send capable people from the developed world to the developing world to accelerate utility growth even more.)

D0TheMath @ 2025-01-30T16:05 (+3)

This seems pretty unlikely to me tbh, people are just less productive in the developing world than the developed world, and its much easier to do stuff--including do good--when you have functioning institutions, surrounded by competent people, connections & support structures, etc etc.

That's not to say sending people to the developed world is bad. Note that you can get lots of the benefits of living in a developed country by simply having the right to live in a developed country, or having your support structure or legal system or credentials based in a developed country.

Of course, its much easier to just allow everyone in a developing country to just move to a developed country, but assuming the hyper rationalist bot exists with an open boarders constraint, it seems incredibly obvious to me that what you say would not happen.

WillieG @ 2025-01-30T20:36 (+1)

If I can pull this thread...you previously wrote, "Maybe I have more faith in the market here than you do, but I do think that technical & scientific & economic advancement do in fact have a tendency to not only make everywhere better, but permanently so."

In your opinion, is this an argument in favor of prioritizing pushing both EA money and people into communities like SV that are high-impact in terms of technological advancement?