Techcrunch has a guest post up by Vivek Wadhwa, about the increasing “reverse brain drain”, whereby the ranks of highly skilled Indians and Chinese immigrants choosing to return home are swelling.

He asked a team of researchers at Duke, Harvard and Berkeley to poll 1203 returnees to India and China during the second half of 2008 to find out why they would choose to leave locations like New York, Boston and Silicon Valley to return to their home countries.

“Some 84% of the Chinese and 69% of the Indians cited professional opportunities. And while they make less money in absolute terms at home, most said their salaries brought a “better quality of life” than what they had in the U.S…When it came to social factors, 67% of the Chinese and 80% of the Indians cited better ‘family values’ at home. Ability to care for aging parents was also cited, and this may be a hidden visa factor: it’s much harder to bring parents and other family members over to the U.S. than in the past. For the vast majority of returnees, a longing for family and friends was also a crucial element… A return ticket home also put their career on steroids. About 10% of the Indians polled had held senior management jobs in the U.S. That number rose to 44% after they returned home.”

Wadhwa also conducted a study of 1224 foreign students currently in the US and whether they would want to stay upon finishing up their education. “The majority told us that they didn’t think that the U.S. was the best place for their professional careers and they planned to return home. Only 6 percent of Indian, 10 percent of Chinese, and 15 percent of European students planned to settle in the U.S… Only 7% of Chinese students, 9% of European students, and 25% of Indian students believe that the best days of the U.S. economy lie ahead. Conversely, 74% of Chinese students and 86% of Indian students believe that the best days for their home country’s economy lie ahead.”
Wadhwa’s post comes only a few days after the UNDP’s Human Development Report, which emphasizes that free migration is essential for development. Apart from the obvious benefits for migrants themselves, it underscores that immigrants typically boost economic output and increases employment in the host country, improve rates of investment in new businesses and increase the capacity for innovation.

With a struggling economy and an H-1B visa quota that in recent years has proved woefully insufficient (this year’s lack of applicants has been an exception spurred by the global recession), the US may have to consider a policy change to both attract and enable more foreign students to stay on. And even that may not be anywhere near sufficient, given how “home” for Indian and Chinese immigrants is increasingly being perceived as the land of burgeoning opportunity.

On the flip side, for India, the “reverse brain drain” is good news. The country, which in recent decades has developed a history of losing doctors, engineers and IT professionals to the US, is already benefiting from a wave of foreign returnees, who armed with the skills and knowledge honed by a US education could help breakdown conservative attitudes, refine cumbersome business practices and inefficient business models, and of course sow the seeds for innovation and new industry.