European Demographic Monographs – serie

In 1967 S. Dedijer and L. Svennigson published their famous bibliography Brain Drain and Brain Gain, (Lund, 1968, index of authors, countries and regions). It contained 415 items from 40 countries and appeared at a time when the debate about the ad­ vantages and disadvantages of the brain drain was at its most intense. But the brain drain is still not a thing of the past - certain­ ly not for Europe. The European countries and those of the rest of the world are in different stages of transition. Industrialization has generally been associated, on the one hand with ever more rapid forms of trans­ portation and other forms of communication, a long-range rise in the per capita income, the exodus from the countryside to the cities and an enormous urbanization process, and the demand for improved social and economic security, on the other. But these characteristics tend to be more relative than absolute. It is not possible to make a distinct division between developed nations, and countries in various stages of development. All countries are constantly undergoing change and are in transition with respect to development. The constant migration of skilled workers and es­ pecially the search for better training and working conditions on the part of academically trained people is inseparable from this process of transition - i. e. from the phenomenon of long-range. permanent change. Fortunately this is not as deplorable as some observers would make it appear to be.

As the world's population increases, where will it live? Surely many will end up in cities for a recent United Nations' report anticipates that the globe's urban people will increase from 1. 33 billion in 1970 to 3. 09 billion in the year 2000. In the same period, however, the expectation is that rural population will increase from 2. 25 billion to 3. 02 billion. Of course the latter will be unevenly distributed; 91 per cent are likely to be in the less developed regions of the world while the rural folks of the more developed areas are expected to decline from 335 million to 255 million by 2000 A. D. No matter where, the major part of the increasing rural population probably will go to areas already thinly to densely settled. But not all. Even in parts of the more developed nations and for sure in many of the less developed countries one may expect significant numbers of people to move to what is now uninhabited land. Why? Because this is the nature of people and of nations. Research on the subject discloses that new rural settling is not a limited action that is restricted are ally or in time. Rather it is a natural and continuing process that evidences variety in a nation's desires; these may be expressed directly or indirectly by national governments through sponsored action or simply by permissiveness.