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Article Title:
The Occurrence of Brain Drain in Malaysia: Perceptions on to Work or not to Work Overseas in the Future
by Mastura Ab. Wahab

Abstract:
Brain drain is the movement of highly-skilled workers from less developed countries to more developed countries due to economic, political, social or personal reasons. Many negative impacts are associated with the brain drain particularly on the people of the country and its economic development. In the case of Malaysia, factors such as better pay and perks, job opportunity, career advancement and social injustice were amongst the reasons many Malaysians migrated overseas. In efforts to curb further brain drain, the Malaysian government has put in strategies to try reversing this problem. In this study, 100 students were sampled to examine their intention to work overseas or local. Brain drain happens when students decided to work overseas, therefore taking students as samples would provide further insights into the knowledge on the trends of future brain drain. The results support the study hypotheses that students? intention to work overseas are due to the push and pull factors such as better salary and compensation, economic condition, family influence and career satisfaction. The results also show that the direction of this relationship can be changed with the help of the reverse push factors.

Keywords: brain drain, reverse brain drain, Malaysia, overseas, push and pull factors

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