A brain drain or human capital flight is an emigration of trained and talented individuals ("human capital") for other nations or jurisdictions, due to conflict, lack of opportunity and/or health hazards where they are living. It parallels the term "capital flight" which refers to financial capital which is no longer invested in the country where its owner lives and earned it. Investment in higher education is lost when the trained individual leaves, usually not to return. Also whatever social capital the individual has been a part of is reduced by their departure. Spokesmen for the Royal Society of London first coined the expression “brain drain” to describe the outflow of scientists and technologists to the United States and Canada in the early 1950s.

History

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Historically, the greatest brain drains have been from rural to urban areas. In the 19th century and 20th century there were great migrations to North America from Europe, and in modern times, from developing nations to developed nations, especially after colonialism. Sometimes such drains occur between developed nations, e.g. from Canada to the United States especially in the finance, software, aerospace, healthcare and entertainment industries due to higher wages and lower taxes. Only in recent years this trend seems to be slowing and even reversing with many Canadians returning home to work.

Nazism and the United States Brain Gain

The rise of the Nazis led to a great number of European scientists (many of whom either Jewish or were opposed to Nazism) to flee to the United States. European scientists played a large role in the success of the Manhattan project. Enrico Fermi, Albert Einstein and many other European scientists worked on this scientific project which had been pioneered in Germany. During the immediate post-war period, Operation Paperclip was used to capture many German rocket engineers such as Wernher von Braun. Wernher von Braun and other German engineers used their research on the V-2 as a starting point for the US missile program. Without Wernher von Braun, the United States missile program would have never been able to make such significant progress. Many other German aerospace engineers used aerospace technology developed in Germany to design missiles and aircraft. As an example, the delta wing was first pioneered on the Messerschmidt Komet would be used in the design of the US Space Shuttle Wing.

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