Pakistan is the Second Biggest Source of Foreign Doctors in US and UK
When US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke suffered a massive heart attack in 2010, the doctors who responded to this emergency were both foreign: one from India and the other from Pakistan. Dr. Farzad Najam, a graduate of King Edward Medical College in Lahore, was the chief heart surgeon at George Washington University Hospital at the time. Dr. Monica Mukherjee, a junior cardiologist at the hospital, assisted Dr. Najam in the operating theater. This episode illustrates the high profile presence of South Asian doctors in the United States.
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| Doctor Brain Drain. Source: Statista |
More recently, Dr. Mansoor Mohiuddin, a 1989 graduate of Karachi's Dow Medical College, made global headlines when he implanted a pig heart in a patient at University of Maryland School of Medicine. Considered one of the world’s foremost experts on transplanting animal organs, known as xenotransplantation, Muhammad M. Mohiuddin, MD, Professor of Surgery at UMSOM, joined the UMSOM faculty five years ago and established the Cardiac Xenotransplantation Program with Dr. Griffith. Dr. Mohiuddin serves as the program’s Scientific/Program Director and Dr. Griffith as its Clinical Director.
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| Top Countries of Origin of Foreign Doctors in the US. Source: OECD |
The pervasive presence of South Asian doctors in the United States is confirmed by OECD (Organization for Cooperation and Development) statistics on foreign doctors in OECD member nations. While India has remained the top source of foreign doctors since 2013, Pakistan has moved up from third to second spot in this period. As of 2016, there were 45,830 Indian doctors and 12,454 Pakistani doctors among 215,630 foreign doctors in the United States. India (45,830) and Pakistan (12,454) are followed by Grenada (10,789), Philippines (10,217), Dominica (9,974), Mexico (9,923), Canada (7,765), Dominican Republic (6,269), China (5,772), UAE (4,635) and Egypt (4,379).
In percentage terms, 21% of foreign doctors come from India, 6% from Pakistan, 5% each from Grenada, Philippines and Dominica and 4% from Mexico.
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| Pie Chart of Origins of Foreign Medical Graduates in US. Source: OECD |
Many of these "foreign doctors" are US citizens, born and raised in the United States, who travel abroad to study at foreign medical schools. Their reasons vary from ease of admissions to lower costs. This is particularly true of the medical schools in the Caribbean nations.
Many Caribbean nations have established medical schools to especially cater to the demand from the United States. In 2007, Pakistan, too, set up Dow International Medical College as part of Dow University of Health Science (DUHS).
Indians and Pakistanis also make up the top two nationalities among 66,211 foreign doctors in the United Kingdom. There are 18,953 doctors from India, 8,026 from Pakistan, 4.880 from Nigeria and 4,471 from Egypt in the UK.
The list of 25,400 foreign doctors in Canada is topped by South Africans (2,604) followed by Indians (2,127), Irish (1,942), British (1,923), Americans (1,263) and Pakistanis (1,087).
There are 25,607 Pakistani medical school graduates currently working in all of the OECD member countries which are considered the rich industrialized nations. These Pakistani doctors account for 10.6% of 242,000 Pakistan-trained doctors practicing now. 74,455 Indian doctors working in OECD nations make up 7.3% of about 1,020,000 of all India-trained doctors in practice.
In spite of losing 10.6% of its doctors to "brain drain" compared to India's 7.3%, Pakistan still has more doctors per capita (1.1 per 1000 population) than India (0.7 doctors per 1000 population), according to the World Bank. Pakistani medical colleges admit 16,000 students a year compared to 92,000 in India.
As the populations age and demand for medical services grows in the West, more and more of it is being met by recruiting health care workers, including doctors and nurses, from the developing world.
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By India Today News Desk: A man relieving himself on the railway tracks in Alwar died after a cow, which came in the way of a Vande Bharat train, fell on him on Wednesday.
The incident occurred in the jurisdiction of Aravali Vihar police station in Alwar, Rajasthan. The deceased has been identified as Shivdayal Sharma -- a man who retired from the post of an electrician in the Indian Railways 23 years ago.
According to Shivdayal's relatives, a cow came in the way of a Vande Bharat train which left from Kali Mori gate around 8:30 am. The impact of the collision was such that a portion of the cow's body fell 30 metres away over Shivdayal, who was relieving himself on the tracks. Shivdayal died on the spot.
Shivdayal's body was sent for post-mortem to the district hospital on Wednesday morning. The semi-high speed Vande Bharat trains have had run-ins with cattle along many routes, the maximum number of them being reported from the Mumbai-Gujarat stretch.
Within days of its launch, the Mumbai-Gandhinagar Vande Bharat Superfast Express train suffered minor damage after colliding with cattle on October 6. The next day, the same train sustained a minor damage to its nose panel after it hit a cow near Anand station in Gujarat.
On October 8, the train had suffered a bearing defect in the traction motor of the C8 coach between the Dankaur and Wair stations. On October 29, the Mumbai-Gandhinagar Vande Bharat had a runover with a cattle near Atul in Gujarat's Valsad.
Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnav said collision with cattle on the tracks is unavoidable and this has been kept in mind while designing the semi-high-speed Vande Bharat trains, which run at a speed of approximately 130-160 kmph.
Meanwhile, the Western Railways has decided to put metal fencing along the over 620km-long Mumbai-Ahmedabad trunk route to stop animals from straying onto the tracks and prevent accidents.
https://theprint.in/india/india-expects-all-primary-lower-secondary-school-kids-to-be-educated-by-2030-unesco-report/811148/
The report indicates that these numbers are significantly higher than 2015. That year, 36.5 per cent and 38.8 per cent of students achieved minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics at the end of primary education. However, this number is expected to grow to 90 per cent and 85 per cent in 2025.
Lower secondary levels of mathematics proficiency, at 12.3 per cent in 2015, were lower than Bangladesh (31 per cent), Nepal (53.8 per cent), Pakistan (68 per cent) and Sri Lanka (50.6 per cent). But for India, the number is expected to grow over six times to 75 per cent by 2030.
Pakistan and the IMF have been negotiating the programme's resumption for months but have yet to reach an agreement
https://www.outlookindia.com/business/remittances-sent-by-pakistani-expats-reach-2-5-billion-in-march-central-bank-news-277403
Pakistani expatriates sent home $2.5 billion in remittances in March, a seven-month high, the State Bank of Pakistan said on Monday, as the cash-strapped country tried to avert a major economic crisis. The data from the central bank showed that the inflow of workers’ remittances was 27 per cent higher compared to February. However, it was 11 per cent lower compared to March 2022, Geo News reported.
Pakistan, currently tackling a major economic crisis, is grappling with high external debt, a weak local currency and dwindling foreign exchange reserves. According to the report, historical trends suggest that Pakistanis living abroad sent record-high remittances ahead of Eid festivals each year.
According to the report, inflows remained comparatively high as non-resident Pakistanis used legal channels to send funds to their family, given the shrinking gap between rates in the interbank and the open market. Pakistani expatriates in Saudi Arabia topped the list of remittances by sending an amount of $563.9 million in March. However, it was 24.04 per cent lower than the $454.6 million received in February, the report said.
Pakistanis living in the UAE sent home 25.52 per cent more as receipts increased from $406.7 million to $324 million. Remittances from overseas Pakistanis in the UK increased 33.12 per cent to $422 million, the report said, adding that they sent $317 million in February. Head of Research at Arif Habib Limited, Tahir Abbas, said that the monthly increase in the remittances is due to the Ramzan factor that usually fetches higher flows due to family commitments, welfare, and charity, among other things.
"The flows in the upcoming months are expected to remain elevated due to another Eid falling by the end of this fiscal year," Abbas was quoted as saying in the report. Terming the increase a “good omen”, Head of Research at Pakistan-Kuwait Investment Company, Samiullah Tariq, said, “Remittances number is highest for past seven months; however, this year Ramzan has started earlier which is why remittance inflow increased earlier than last year,” the report said.
According to a prominent US-based think tank, the United States Institute of Peace, Pakistan needs to repay a whopping $77.5 billion in external debt from April 2023 to June 2026. It added that the cash-strapped country might face disruptive effects if it ultimately defaults. Pakistan is awaiting a much-needed $1.1 billion tranche of funding from the Washington-based International Monetary Fund, originally due to be disbursed in November last year.
The funds are part of a $6.5 billion bailout package the IMF approved in 2019, which analysts say is critical if Pakistan is to avoid defaulting on external debt obligations. The IMF programme, signed in 2019, will expire on June 30, 2023, and under the set guidelines, the programme cannot be extended beyond the deadline. Pakistan and the IMF have been negotiating the programme's resumption for months but have yet to reach an agreement.
https://propakistani.pk/2023/05/18/uk-adds-226-new-visa-categories-to-urgently-hire-skilled-workers/
Exciting opportunities have emerged for Pakistani youth seeking employment abroad as the United Kingdom opens its doors to skilled workers from around the world, including Pakistan.
In response to the severe manpower shortage currently faced by Britain, the country has introduced a significant expansion in its immigration policies.
According to official reports, a total of 226 new immigration categories have been established, accompanied by a noteworthy increase in the minimum wage across all job categories.
This development marks the first time that professions such as police officers, journalists, judges, secret officers, barristers, lawyers, and flight pilots have been included in the immigration category. Furthermore, an additional 31 categories have been designated, encompassing diverse fields such as musicians, dancers, doctors, actors, and scientists.
The expanded opportunities extend beyond specific professions, as drivers, instructors, railway station assistants, air hostesses, cabin crew, veterinary doctors, and tailors are now eligible to pursue employment in the UK. Moreover, individuals with expertise in areas such as masonry, aircraft engineering, AC/fridge engineering, welding, charity work, and estate agency will also find potential avenues for relocation.
Students pursuing education in the UK can now benefit from the post-study work facility, which allows them to gain valuable work experience following the completion of their studies. Notably, highly-educated professionals can anticipate a substantial 20 percent increase in their remuneration, as highlighted in the official letter.
To facilitate the approved manpower shortage category, the UK government has taken steps to keep visa fees at a reasonable level, ensuring accessibility for individuals seeking employment opportunities in the country.
These progressive changes in the UK’s immigration policies provide an encouraging prospect for skilled workers from Pakistan and around the world. The reduced visa fees and the inclusion of a diverse range of professions reflect the British government’s commitment to addressing the pressing shortage of manpower while simultaneously welcoming talented individuals to contribute to the country’s workforce.
Aspiring professionals from Pakistan are encouraged to explore these newfound possibilities, which not only promise career growth but also cultural exchange and personal development. The opportunities available in the UK cater to a wide spectrum of skills and talents, fostering an environment where individuals can thrive and make significant contributions to their chosen fields.
With these favorable policy revisions, Pakistanis can now embark on a transformative journey, utilizing their expertise to build successful careers and establish meaningful connections in the United Kingdom.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/feb/23/uk-now-among-most-accepting-countries-for-foreign-workers-survey-finds
Shortfall of 330,000 workers in UK due to Brexit, say thinktanks
Read more
People in the UK emerged as less likely to think that when jobs are scarce employers should give priority to people of their own country than those in Norway, Canada, France, Spain, the US, Australia and Japan. Only Germany and Sweden were more open on that question.
In what the study’s authors described as “an extraordinary shift”, only 29% of people in the UK in 2022 said priority over jobs should go to local people, compared with 65% when the same question was asked in 2009.
The findings come as employers call for more migration to help fill more than 1m vacancies, and after the prime minister appointed the anti-immigration firebrand Lee Anderson as deputy chair of the Conservative party. He has called people arriving in small boats on the south coast “criminals” and called for them to be “sent back the same day”. Police have been deployed to hotels where asylum seekers are being housed amid violent protests by anti-immigration activists.
“It was unthinkable a decade ago that the UK would top any international league table for positive views of immigration,” said Prof Bobby Duffy, the director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, who shared the findings from the latest round of the survey exclusively with the Guardian and the BBC. “But that’s where we are now, with the UK the least likely, from a wide range of countries, to say we should place strict limits on immigration or prohibit it entirely.”
The UK ranked fourth out of 24 nations for the belief that immigrants have a very or quite good impact on the development of the country – ahead of Norway, Spain, the US and Sweden.
One factor in the shift in opinions on the question of “British jobs for British workers” may be that in 2009 the UK was in a deep recession, with more than double today’s unemployment, whereas today the economy suffers from a worker shortage, with 1.1m vacancies in the UK, 300,000 more than before the pandemic.
Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, last year urged employers to look to the British workforce in the first instance and “get local people”, although the government has widened visa programmes for seasonal workers and care staff.
Duffy said the findings showed that “it’s time to listen more carefully to public attitudes”. He said: “Politicians often misread public opinion on immigration. In the 2000s, Labour government rhetoric and policy on this issue was more relaxed than public preferences, and arguably they paid the price – but the current government is falling into the reverse trap.”
People in the UK are now the least likely of the 24 countries that participate in the World Values Survey study to think immigration increases unemployment, and second from top in thinking that immigrants fill important job vacancies.
They are very likely to say immigration boosts cultural diversity, and very unlikely to think immigration comes with crime and safety risks. However, more people in the UK think immigration leads to “social conflict” than in several other countries, including Canada, Japan and China.
Pakistanis
People 61,915
Male 37,720
Female 24,195
Australian citizen 42.3%
Not an Australian citizen 56.0%
https://www.abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2016/7106_0
Indians
People 455,388
Male 245,416
Female 209,972
Australian citizen 48.1%
Not an Australian citizen 50.8%
https://www.abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2016/7103_0
https://scroll.in/article/1021175/brain-drain-two-in-three-indian-emigrants-are-highly-educated
Indians have been leaving the country in droves because of better job and education opportunities.
The world’s largest source of immigrants also ranks high in terms of their education levels. And here is why that is a problem.
Nearly two-thirds of those migrating out of India seem to be highly educated, having received academic or vocational training. This is the highest for any country, according to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
This brain drain is a “consequence of an education system designed for ‘selecting’ the best and brightest in an economy that is still too controlled and cannot create opportunities for its best and brightest”, according to economist Shruti Rajagopalan.
Unemployment crisis
In India, unemployment levels rise with education, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. As of December 2021, one in five college graduates was unemployed. Besides a lack of jobs, there are also the problems of a skills-opportunity mismatch and corruption to deal with in the country.
Additionally, gender and caste discrimination still wreak havoc. These problems exist in the west as well but are not as acute as they are in India.
Opportunities abroad
Indians have been leaving the country in droves because of job opportunities with better pay and work hours. In the United States and United Kingdom, for instance, professionals in the healthcare and science, technology, engineering and math fields are in high demand.
Further, international students are a great source of income for universities abroad. For Indian students, it is not only the quality of courses but the diversity and holistic set-up in those campuses, too, are a huge draw.
An added attraction is the opportunity to stay on after graduation. Post-study visas, like the H-1B in the US, have mostly gone to Indians. Western countries have also etched out categories for startup founders and innovators.
No wonder then that the number of Indians studying abroad is set to grow from 7.7 lakh in 2019 to 18 lakh in 2024.
https://phys.org/news/2023-01-migration-academics-economic-necessarily-brain.html
A team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock, Germany, developed a database on international migration of academics in order to assess emigration patterns and trends for this key group of innovators. Their paper was published in PNAS on Jan. 18.
As a first step, the team produced a database that contains the number of academics who publish papers regularly, and migration flows and migration rates for all countries that include academics who published papers listed on the bibliographic database Scopus. The migration database was obtained by leveraging metadata of more than 36 million journal articles and reviews published from 1996 to 2021.
"This migration database is a major resource to advance our understanding of the migration of academics," says MPIDR Researcher Ebru Sanliturk. Data Scientist Maciej Danko adds: "While the underlying data are proprietary, our approach generates anonymized aggregate-level datasets that can be shared for noncommercial purposes and that we are making publicly available for scientific research."
MPIDR Researcher Aliakbar Akbaritabar explains how they processed the bibliographic data in order to receive information about the migration patterns of academics: "We used the metadata of the article title, name of the authors and affiliations of almost every article and review published in Scopus since 1996. We followed every single one of the roughly 17 million researchers listed in the bibliographic database through the years and noticed changes in affiliation and, by using that tactic we know how many academics left a given country every year."
The researchers' empirical analysis focused on the relationship between emigration and economic development, indicating that academic setting patterns may differ widely from population-level ones.
Previous literature has shown that, as low-income countries become richer, overall emigration rates initially rise. At a certain point the increase slows down and the trend reverses, with emigration rates declining.
This means that favoring economic development has the counterintuitive effect of initially increasing migration from low- and middle-income countries, rather than decreasing it.
Is this pattern also generally valid for migration of scientists?
Not really.
The researchers found that, when considering academics, the pattern is the opposite: in low- and middle-income countries, emigration rates decrease as the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita increases. Then, starting from around 25,000 US Dollars in GDP, the trend reverses and emigration propensity increases as countries get richer.
MPIDR Director Emilio Zagheni adds, "Academics are a crucial group of innovators whose work has relevant economic effects. We showed that their propensity to emigrate does not immediately increase with economic development—indeed it decreases until a high-income turning point and then increases. This implies that increasing economic development does not necessarily lead to an academic brain drain in low- and middle-income countries."
Unveiling these and related patterns, and addressing big scientific questions with societal implications, was possible only because of painstaking work in preparing this new global database of migration of academics. "We are putting the final touches on an even more comprehensive database, the Scholarly Migration Database, which will be released on its own website soon," says software developer Tom Theile.
http://data.uis.unesco.org/index.aspx?queryid=3807#
Pakistan: 64,604 students
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Bangladesh 49,151
Brazil 89,151
Canada 51,156
China 1,088,466
Egypt 43,243
India 516,000
Iran 66,701
Malaysia 55,311
Morocco 63,001
Nepal 95,268
Nigeria 71,753
Pakistan 64,604
Syria 87,057
South Africa 12,295
South Korea 100,610
Russia 57,591
Vietnam 132,559
UK 40,074
USA 109,827
Bangladesh (70,000) , Nepal (125,500), Pakistan (103,190), Philippines (62,000) and Thailand (40,720).
https://monitor.icef.com/2023/03/outbound-mobility-trends-for-five-key-sending-markets-in-asia/
Pakistan
The most recent UNESCO data (2020) counts 64,065 Pakistani students abroad in higher education. Outbound mobility from Pakistan was over 103,190 in 2022 when we consult more recent statistics published by government sources in various destinations. There have been large increases in Pakistani students recorded recently in the UK, Australia, US, Canada, and Germany.
The top three destinations for Pakistani students currently are UAE, UK, and Australia.
UAE: 24,865 in 2020 according to UNESCO
UK: 23,075 in 2021/22 (+62% y-o-y)
Australia: 15,875 in 2022 (+15%)
US: 8,770 in 2021/22 (+17%)
Germany: 7,115 in 2021/22 (+22%)
Canada: 6,405 in 2022 (+38%)
Kyrgyzstan: 6,000 in 2020 according to UNESCO
Malaysia: 4,700 in 2021
Turkey: 2,385 in 2020 according to UNESCO
Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Sweden, Qatar: At least 4,000 in 2020 according to UNESCO
https://data.census.gov/table/ACSSPP1Y2022.S0201?q=S0201:+Selected+Population+Profile+in+the+United+States&t=-02:-04:070:Ancestry:Income+and+Poverty
Pakistani-Americans Median Household Earning: $106,281, Mean Earnings: $149,178
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White Americans: Median household Income $78,636 Mean Earnings $112,415
African Americans : $52,238 $76,888
American Indian Alaska Native $61,778 $85,838
Asian Indian $152,341 $197,732
Bangladeshi $80,288 $116,500
Chinese $101,738 $160,049
Taiwanese $122,952 $180,906
Filipino $109,090 $122,635
Pakistanis $106,286 $149,178
Nepal $92,262 $120,146
Asians $104,646 $149,363