Name: Pakistan – from Brain Drain to Brain Gain?
Uploaded: 2025-10-31T14:20:22.773Z
Duration: 7 min 30 s
Description: Doctors, engineers, and top graduates are leaving Pakistan in search of stability abroad. The skilled workers shortage is growing – but can Pakistan turn the current brain drain into a long-term brain gain?

Doctors, engineers, and top graduates are leaving Pakistan in search of stability abroad. The skilled workers shortage is growing – but can Pakistan turn the current brain drain into a long-term brain gain?

Islamabad

Pakistan is undergoing a major brain drain as instability in politics, security, economy, and climate drives many of its skilled professionals and students to seek better prospects abroad. Official migration figures have surged, with nearly 900,000 people leaving in 2023 alone, and actual numbers may be higher due to unrecorded student and skilled migration to Western countries.

Remittances from overseas Pakistanis reached over $34 billion last year, providing crucial support for families and the national economy. However, this financial lifeline comes at the cost of shortages in sectors such as healthcare and education. Experts argue that to reverse the trend, Pakistan must create more opportunities at home, restore public trust, and actively engage its diaspora.

Pakistan – from Brain Drain to Brain Gain?

Pakistan is facing crisis after crisis, with nearly every aspect of life marked by instability. Politics, security, economy, and climate. For many, the only way out is to leave the country. But this is no longer about labor migration. The country's best and brightest are packing their bags, and Pakistan is facing a brain drain. For decades, hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis have been leaving the country each year. The passport office in Karachi fills up every day with long lines of people hoping to leave, not for tourism, but for survival. Official registered migration began rising sharply in 2005, peaking near one million in 2015. After a brief dip, numbers rose again, reaching almost 900,000 in 2023 alone. From 2005 to 2015, rising oil prices sparked an economic boom in places like Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Big construction projects took off, and suddenly those countries needed loads of foreign workers. Saudi Arabia has always been a top destination for Pakistani workers. In the past 10 years alone, more than 3.5 million Pakistanis moved there, and over 2 million to the UAE. But official data does not represent reality. It doesn't capture many skilled professionals, students, or family moving to Western countries. So the data is basically those who are registered with the Bureau of Immigration and Workers' Employment are those who are on a work visa. So to the Western countries, many people go either by student visa or visits, and then they're going for resettlement. To see how this reality feels on the ground, we talked to university students in Karachi. Almost every student we met was considering leaving the country after finishing their degree. Our Pakistani mentality is, it doesn't matter if we use our talent for others if we're getting paid for it. This widespread mindset has become embedded in our youth. Here in Pakistan, it's hard to survive. In Pakistan, we don't have many opportunities. There are no opportunities for students or unemployed people. If foreign countries provide these things, people would like to take advantage of it. If I go abroad, I will go to Germany because they give amenities to students, like nearly free tuition and transportation. Seven years ago, Aksa Gul made the same choice. She left Pakistan for Germany, finished her master's, and now works full-time in Berlin as an architect. She understands their frustration. There it was not very much possible to have a good earning and to start my career. I tried actually, especially as a girl also, because architecture is a very male-dominant field in Pakistan. Here I can earn, I can support my family back in Pakistan. Professionals don't just leave Pakistan for a bigger paycheck. For young doctors, jobs in public hospitals are few and far between. Dr. Arslan Khazanfar, now a researcher in molecular experimental surgery at the University of Magdeburg, remembers the odds all too well. There is no balance between the jobs and number of candidates who are actually passing the field. So if there is one seat available for, I would say, a medical officer in any public hospital in Pakistan, then there might be 1,000 applicants for that seat. And getting that job doesn't feel like hitting the jackpot. When I was working there, so you have to go there for 24-hour shift, 36-hour shift. Or sometimes I was going there and I don't have any idea when I'm coming back. Arslan and Aksa each send the equivalent of about 500 euros home each month, a lifeline for middle-class families now struggling with soaring rents, energy bills, and food prices. Inflation in Pakistan is much higher than in neighboring countries. In 2022 it was around 20 percent, and then in 2023 it jumped to around 30 percent. And even that, it's come down to around 12 percent this year. But it's still well above the regional payers. Last year, overseas Pakistanis sent more than $34 billion in remittances, according to the State Bank of Pakistan. Almost double the figure in 2014, and equal to just over 8 percent of Pakistan's entire economy. That money raises household incomes, keeps kids in school, and acts as a shock absorber whenever crisis hits. Remittances increase during a downturn, like, for example, when there is an earthquake, when there is a flood. So the people, the immigrants, they respond to that shock, whether it's a climatic shock, whether it's a financial shock, whether it's a country-specific shock. But the same lifeline drains talent from the very sectors Pakistan needs most. While remittances provide a clear financial gain, but the hidden cost is high. Migrants boost productivity in their host country, but their absence creates a shortage back home, especially in the health sector, education, and skilled trade. So it's a double-edged sword. Remittances are for relief, but bearing the risk and weakening Pakistan's economic potential. Those who leave Pakistan may see their financial situation improve and the future appear brighter. But it comes with personal sacrifices they must bear alone. It's not easy living abroad also, away from your family, missing out on holidays and all the important occasions. But just to be here and to have a comfortable life for my family back there, we have to do these things. The only real solution to the high price paid by the diaspora and by Pakistan itself is to make staying or coming back worthwhile. We need a focus, a three-part strategy to create opportunity, restore trust of the people, and engage the diaspora. Pakistan needs to act now, fix the job market, rebuild public confidence, and turn today's brain drain into tomorrow's brain gain by investing in a knowledge economy, improving governance, and perceiving overseas Pakistanis as partners, not just remitters. The talent is out there. The real question is, can Pakistan bring it back home?

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