While the Western Balkans as a whole remains a region that is suffering from the negative impact of external migration, or “brain drain”, a recent study from the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies reveals that Serbia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia are – at least among the highly-educated – experiencing the reverse: what has been dubbed “brain gain”, London-based Emerging Europe news portal reports on Tuesday.

According to the news portal, migration away from the Western Balkans is not new. For both political and economic reasons, the region has long been net exporter of people, especially when it comes to the young.

But as the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies study reveals, the structure of this emigration is not uniform across all six countries of the region, nor across all education levels.

Unsurprisingly, the study confirms that emigration is highest among young people.

Brain drain, the emigration of highly-skilled and educated workers, is high in three of the six Western Balkan countries — Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo.

It’s especially pronounced in Albania where 40 per cent of the cumulative outflow in the analysed period (2012-2019) were highly-educated people. What’s more, in Albania and Kosovo, brain drain happens primarily with people in the their early to mid-twenties, indicating that many leave as soon as they finish their tertiary education.

Far more interestingly, the other three Western Balkan countries — Serbia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia — have actually recorded “brain gain” in the observed period.

This net immigration is also most pronounced among people in their twenties. In all three countries, emigration of those with medium-level education is highest among the youngest cohort. Therefore, the study authors conclude that the brain gain is the result of people coming back to their home countries after finishing tertiary education abroad.

Those countries who are experiencing brain drain need to make sure there isn’t an oversupply of graduates in some fields and deal with the mismatch between skills attained in universities and the skills that the job market needs.

Those with brain gain should make sure their advantage is put to good use: with policies that guarantee the imported knowledge and know-how actually benefit local economies, Emerging Europe added.