Brain drain from poorer countries not so big - OECD

PARIS (Reuters) - The belief that rich countries are draining poorer ones of their best-qualified people is largely unfounded, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said in a report published on Wednesday.

The OECD, whose 30 members are wealthy and industrialised in the majority, said the exodus from the developing to developed world was notable in the case of some smaller African and Caribbean countries but remained low elsewhere.

"There is no generalised brain drain from the developing countries to the OECD," the Paris-based organisation said in the report, titled "A Profile of Immigrant Populations in the 21st Century".

"The emigration rate of people holding a tertiary degree is generally low in most large countries," the OECD said, reporting it at less than five percent in Brazil, Indonesia, Bangladesh, India and China.

Exceptions, where 40 to 80 percent of those with third-level qualifications quit their home country, included many small economies and often island ones, such as Fiji, Mauritius, Jamaica, Haiti and Trinidad and Tobago, the OECD said.

While the brain drain towards developed countries was not as big as some might have believed, the OECD said there were particular problems in the healthcare sector, but that conclusive data was still proving hard to come by.

India was the chief supplier of doctors to the wealthy world while the main source of nurses was the Philippines.

"With regards to doctors, China and the former USSR play a striking role, with more than 10,000 doctors working in the OECD," the report said.