Journal of Business & Financial Affairs

An Empirical Investigation of the Effects of Brain Drain on Developing Countries since 21st Century: A Case of Afghanistan

Abstract

Mujeeb URR*

The purpose of this study is to find out the factors behind the flood of Afghan migrants the world witnessed during the past couple of years. After the withdrawal of some portion of US and NATO forces in 2014, people of Afghanistan suffered mainly from continued security concerns which ultimately stimulated migration of young minds at large but this is not the only factor we analyzed during the process. The push factors such as cost of weddings in some parts of Afghanistan is a profound problem and it was observed from the investigation of the sample population as a stimulus for youth to go abroad to work and save money for getting married. We investigated the unemployment factor on brain drain from Afghanistan on a large scale. This factor clearly proved to be the major driver of migration based on the results obtained in this empirical study. Furthermore, each year thousands of students leave Afghanistan to study in different parts of the world on scholarship. We investigated the role of educational scholarships on motivating youth to leave Afghanistan and their probability to return back to their homeland. It was demonstrated through the analysis of sample data that mostly those students who travel abroad for study purposes do not return back to Afghanistan, thereby creating a vacuum in terms of productive young minds. In addition, Social pressure is a common influence on people’s behavior within the different communities in Afghanistan. We analyzed the relationship between people adopting the path of migration with social pressures from society. The analysis of the data showed a positive relationship of the societal pressures on the youth leaving country. The nature of research for my study is based on quantitative methodology. This research targeted mainly the Afghan population living overseas because these are the people who are most affected one way or the other by some internal factors that’s why they migrated. We have also included citizen’s views that live within Afghanistan in order to understand prospects of migration from the participants. However, a convenience sampling method was used in this study as specific people were targeted that we believe would take part in the survey. Social Media such as Facebook and Vkontakte was used to deliver the questionnaires to the respondents. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) statistical models such as Chi square test, binomial probability test, and a one sample test were used to test the hypotheses statements. A pairwise test was used to rank the factors in terms of major influence on migration.