Paul Bou-Habib on the Real Problem with Brain Drain

Here’s three facts about the Nigeria. Fact one: Nigerians have just 4 doctors per 10,000 people. For comparison, the UK has 30 doctors per 10,000 people, that’s more than seven times as many. Fact two: life expectancy in Nigeria is just 55. In the UK it’s 81. Fact three: half of Nigerian doctors are currently working abroad. Some take such facts as a sign of the costs of migration. They blame migration for draining poor countries of the skilled professionals they desperately need to address poverty and disease. Paul Bou-Habib, from Essex University, has a different take. He thinks that the real problem here is one exploitation. Rich countries are benefiting from migration without giving back. So, what are the costs of skilled migration? What is exploitation and how does it differ from related concepts such as robbery and theft? And if Paul is right that brain drain is a serious ethical problem, can philosophers really do anything to solve it?