Mobility of high skilled professionals: the brain waste and the brain gain

Abstract

The literature review allows us to conclude that the traditional perception of the brain drain has no empirical evidence on the aggregate level, being necessary the understanding of the circumstances and factors that influence the process in each country. This research aims to make a study of this type in the Portuguese context, still innovating in conceptual and methodological terms: first, refusing the logic of globalizing assumptions of human capital theory, guessing that migration can be caused by factors other than not pay gap by analyzing the set of factors of attraction-repulsion; on the other hand, guessing that the international job system is not a space entirely free and therefore is not only dependent on the free play of supply and demand, is also necessary to observe the biographical trajectories in order to understand the reasons and destinations of migration. The multiple case studies are intended to test the theoretical hypotheses presented in the literature.