Brain drain and financial literacy

: can financial literacy be considered a brain drain determinant?

Abstract

Globalization has played a major role in the increase of the migration of highly skilled population. In an increasingly competitive world, knowing where the talent is moving and why can constitute an important competitive advantage. While many theories focus on the consequences of emigration, there is a lack of research when it comes to its nature and causes. To complement and build a bridge between the existing literature, improving the comprehension of migration processes, this thesis attempts to understand the functioning of the push and pull factors affecting general migration adding one variable to the analysis: financial literacy. Through a survey-based research, I collected data reflecting the relation of financial literacy with brain drain in three ways: through assessing the impact of financial-literacy related push and pull factors on brain drain, through asking participants if they thought financial literacy had an impact in their emigration decision, and through relating the origin’s country level of financial literacy with brain drain amount. The results showed that both general and financial-literacy related factors behave in a similar way and that the brain drain and non-brain drain populations perceive both types of factors as having a similar impact. Moreover, the origin’s country financial literacy level was not considered and both brain drain and non-brain drain samples reported financial literacy to portray a similar low level of impact on their emigration decision. I trust this research is going to pave the way for future studies to focus on an undeveloped part of the literature.

Date of Award	25 Jan 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Cristina Mendonça (Supervisor)