“Historically, skilled and highly educated Southeast Asian returnees commonly joined established institutions in their home countries.”

The Malayan Civil Service, ironically, was not opened to local Malayans. … Rather than harness the growing number of local inhabitants who attained tertiary education to the task of governance, separate schemes of service were created to stave off complaints of discrimination. … Even then, local schemes of service were subordinate to the European-only MCS, with salary scales substantially lower than European officers

In its early development, neither institutions nor scholarship recipients paid sufficient attention to the selection of host countries, institutions, or programs in pursuing their advanced degrees. They were grateful to have the opportunity to study in overseas institutions, an experience that was then considered an extreme luxury.

The ILO research reviewed the experience of the USA and the UK, and also commissioned a series of studies in selected source countries in different regions: Bulgaria, Argentina and Uruguay, Jamaica and the Caribbean, India, Philippines, South and Southern Africa and Sri Lanka. … In the Republic of Korea, the emphasis was on return whereas investments and brain circulation was given more priority in the case of Taiwan (China). The establishment of parallel Silicon valleys, especially in Taiwan (China) was very important: e.g. the Hsinchu industrial Park, Taipei. … Over half of the companies in the Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park have been started by Silicon Valley returnees.

This approach of coupling modernist ideas with bureaucracy was adopted initially by Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) (Johnson 1982) and refined by Singapore where the best students are sent overseas and 'bonded' to return home, and are subsequently also paid extremely well and provided with continual professional development (Barr 2016 ).

Several empirical studies related to return migration show that the effects vary, some of which show positive results, such as the tendency for returned migrants to become entrepreneurs for vocational graduates and wage workers for undergraduate graduates (Zulfiu Alili & Adnett, 2021)

Return migration rates are relatively high for Chinese, Korean, and Japanese migrants, supporting knowledge transfer and potentially catalyzing the growth of entrepreneurial technology sectors in their countries of origin.

Our findings, drawn from interviews with migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong, and return workers in Indonesia and the Philippines, show that while some workers might continue to conduct circular returns for economic and other purposes, others embarked on home-return for settlement, also for different purposes.

Yet, many Overseas Chinese returned to work and live in China, often occupying the highest echelons of leadership in various institutions in the first half of the 20th century.

Historically, the emigration of highly educated and skilled people has been viewed as harmful to countries’ economic development and social progress.

This understanding of seriality in migration is however not suited to the bulk of low-skilled contract-work migration in the Asian context, where the temporal logic is subject to ‘use-and-discard’ dynamics and characterized by limited pathways to family reunification and settlement in host countries.

Through descriptive analyses of forty years of annual reporting data of Singapore’s public service commission, this article examines institutional stability and change in a national scholarship programme from a historical and sociological perspective.

Moving away from a restricted understanding of return as referring only to moving back to one’s birth country, halfway-return allows us to acknowledge emigrants’ often-contradictory feelings toward their birth country.

Historically, the ethnic Chinese had long been present in Southeast Asia as traders. Under colonial rule, they had furthermore filled niches as intermediaries between colonizers, Chinese communities, and local populations. After the abolishment of slavery, they had also worked across Southeast Asia as indentured laborers on plantations, in mines, or in sectors such as construction and shipping (Kuhn 2008) .

The literature on brain drain has traditionally assumed that high-skilled emigrants from developing countries had only these two options to choose from-their current destination (typically a high-income country in the West) or their birth country (in a lowerincome country in Asia, Africa, Latin America, or Eastern Europe) (see King and Kuschminder 2022) .

The issue of utilizing returnees’ knowledge and skills in the service of national development is not a new phenomenon, especially in developing countries, but it is not yet solved. … It must be said that [Ethiopian] returnees as a whole have so far done little to modernize their country… they have been little more than misfits

However, Portes (2009) notes that a cyclical flow can only be positive if the home country has established the infrastructure --research centers and universities, as well as organizations, businesses and industries --to absorb the scientific and technological innovations brought back by the professional returnees.

These investments put in place institutions within the landscape of the Indonesian state and provided Indonesian the opportunity to study at various universities in the West, to ‘correct’ their mindset and prepare them to run the institutions once they arrived back in their home country.

This report explores the forces that are poised to transform the supply, demand, and mobility of skilled professionals across ASEAN, and the unique opportunities their convergence presents for human capital development and brain circulation within Southeast Asia.

After he obtained his PhD in 1957, Wang returned to the University of Malaya where he worked as a lecturer in the History department.

Upon returning to Singapore in 1893, the young doctor set up a clinic at Telok Ayer Street.

At that time, Malaysia was in a transitional period from colonial government to independence. … "We didn't have much experience on government matters; we were used to looking up to the British, and we had to study the files and see how they did things," Yee said. … "So we spent much of our time learning. I was lucky that there were still some British officers in Sabah after I graduated, and I picked up bits and pieces from them. But other than that, we had to become independent; we had to learn to do things our way."

In practice, however, data reveal a much more complex picture that includes Australian emigration to ASEAN countries, significant temporary movements of skilled workers in both directions, and close connections between the two regions even after migrants permanently return to their country of origin.

The third policy incorporated the harmonisation of legal channels for recruiting foreign labour, crackdowns on irregular migrants, and new strategies to reduce the brain drain and lure skilled diasporas to return home.

This article argues that another understated group of individuals—Overseas Chinese—were influential in leading institutions of Western medicine in China, as well as sharing the latest science knowledge they acquired in the West to audiences in China and Southeast Asia.

The Bengalis who migrated willingly from the early colonial period for better opportunities in commercial ventures and the government sector can be termed ‘free’ migrants.

Singaporean materials scientist Shyue Ping Ong has returned home after 19 years in the U.S. to join the National University of Singapore (NUS).

This article investigates the factors that shape how migrant academics engage with fellow scholars within their countries of origin. We focus specifically on the mobility of Asian‐born faculty between Singapore, a fast‐developing education hub in Southeast Asia, and their “home” countries within the region.

The Minangkabau of West Sumatra, largely due to their matrilineal traditions, had a tradition of out-migration, merantau, which had with it the idea of eventual return by individuals equipped with new wealth or knowledge. Many chose the path of teacher (Wang, 1985).

Our data shows that better-educated individuals were much more likely to move to economically dynamic regions – capital cities, industrial zones, and trade hubs.

Some of the diaspora returned to China, contributing to its higher education by funding schools and establishing modern educational systems.

The crisis certainly will have an impact on one group of migrants, small in terms of absolute numbers but large in terms of its role in regional economies: the skilled migrants who are representatives of transnational corporations, both regional and global.

On his return in May 1893, Lim Boon Keng began working as a doctor, and quickly earned a reputation as a skilful and attentive physician. In 1897, Lim, together with Dr T. Murray Robertson, opened ‘The Dispensary’ at Raffles Place, where he served as a doctor for about 10 years.

After his studies in Britain and following a three-month study tour of India and Myanmar, he returned to Thailand and established the Thai education system based on the British school system. He was awarded the title Chao Phraya Thammasakmontri and became Lord Chamberlain in the King's Court.

Specifically, overseas Chinese “returnees” were indispensable in establishing the National College of Oriental Studies (NCOS) during World War II under the nationalist Guomindang government and several Indonesian language programs in the early years of the People’s Republic (PRC).

Indians went from the South Asian subcontinent to work in both the civIl service and the plantation sector of Malaya; Vietnamese moved into the commercial and civil service niches in French-ruled Laos and Camboda.

She graduated from the Faculty of Arts and Science at Chulalongkorn University and joined the civil service, before earning a scholarship for a master's degree in education psychology at the University of Michigan.