Brain drain of Turkish higher education graduates increases to 2 pct in 2023
TÜİK's recent brain drain report puts the rate of Turkish university graduates emigrating at two percent in 2023. The emigration of higher education graduates has been increasing since 2015. Some 21 percent of the graduates preferred the United States.
Duvar English
The Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) on Sept. 26 noted that two percent of higher education graduates emigrated abroad in its "Higher Education Brain Drain Statistics" report.
The data provided information on Turkish citizens who completed their undergraduate education in the country and resided abroad for extended periods after graduation.
The brain drain rate for higher education graduates was 1.6 percent in 2015 and 2.0 percent in 2023. The brain drain rate for female higher education graduates was 1.6 percent, while the brain drain rate for males was 2.4% in 2023.
The undergraduate programs with the highest brain drain rates were molecular biology and genetics at 17.9 percent, bioengineering at 10.2 percent, management engineering at 9.8 percent, followed by electronics engineering at 9.1 percent, mathematical engineering at 8.9 percent, and computer engineering at 8.4 percent.
The top five countries preferred for emigration were, respectively, the United States of America (21.4 percent), Germany (17.5 percent), the United Kingdom (11.2 percent), the Netherlands (6.9 percent), and Canada (4.9 percent).
The 2023 “Turkey Academic Diaspora Report: From Brain Drain to Brain Power” report by the Turkish Informatics Foundation (TBV) revealed that Turkey experiences a brain drain phenomenon in its academic sector, with the most productive researchers likely to leave abroad.
The case stands with Turkey's doctors, with each year a new record number of physicians applying to practice abroad, due to financial hardship and increasing violence against doctors.