Justice scores vs net migration rates. Skilled professionals vote with their feet — toward institutional quality, not just higher wages.
Skilled professionals vote with their feet. Countries with strong institutions attract talent; countries with weak institutions export it. The brain drain is not primarily driven by wages but by institutional quality — research freedom, physical security, and the rule of law.
Africa has lost over 50,000 PhD holders to emigration. The Philippines is the world's top nurse exporter per capita. India's tech and medical brain drain is concentrated among its most educated. In each case, the pull factor is not income alone but the institutional environment that makes productive work possible.