Identifying the Driving Factors Contributing to Afghanistan’s Brain Drain: A Phenomenological Study of Afghans Residing Abroad

Abstract

Afghanistan is an underdeveloped country that has witnessed decades of immigration due to a variety of pressing issues such as, war, poverty, disaster, security concerns, regime shifts, coups and financial hardships. The purpose of the study is to qualitatively explore the causes of intellectual migration, commonly known as Brain Drain by targeting focus group consist of Afghan academics and students residing in other countries. In order to accomplish the study‘s objective, social constructivism philosophy and a phenomenological strategy was adopted. As result of thematic analysis, six imperative themes emerged that induced Afghan intellectuals to reside abroad including; uncertain future, mysterious killing, unemployment, poor quality of life, ethnic discrimination and Taliban recent dominance in Afghanistan. The findings of this study add to the existing literature on human resource management and brain drain from the perspective of Afghanistan. It gives policymakers and the dominant government of Afghanistan a new outlook to devise a strategy to stifle brain drain and entice brain return in light of the findings.