The "brain drain" from the red states is well underway. Here's why?
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in October 2023© Image by AlterNet
A number of progressive and liberal commentators have been forecasting a "brain drain" from red states due to the repressive MAGA laws, which would see highly qualified medical professionals, academics, and teachers depart. Drastic anti-abortion laws are a concern for OB-GYNs; far-right Moms for Liberty is targeting educators and librarians.
In a piece that appeared in The New Republic on November 22, Timothy Noah highlights that the "brain drain" from red states is happening now and isn't something that will happen in the future.
"Republican-dominated states are pushing out young professionals by enacting extremist conservative policies," Noah writes. "Abortion restrictions are the most sweeping example, but state laws restricting everything from academic tenure to transgender health care to the teaching of 'divisive concepts' about race are making these states uncongenial to knowledge workers."
Noah goes on, "Red states were losing college graduates even before the culture war heated up, and the Dobbs decision is still relatively new, so it is difficult to tease out the precise effect of all this on the brain drain from migration statistics." Texas is the only red state that exports more college graduates than it imports, but there is ample evidence that red state social policies leaning hard right are exacerbating this dynamic."
Noah provides specific instances, such as the doctors Kate Arnold and Caroline Flint, a same-sex married couple who relocated to Washington, D.C. from their home state of Oklahoma due to Republican anti-abortion and anti-contraception efforts and book bans.
"Kate Arnold and Caroline Flint are two bright, energetic, professionally trained, and public-spirited women whom Washington is happy to welcome — they both quickly found jobs —even though it doesn't particularly need them," Noah writes. "Oklahoma, Mississippi, Idaho, and several other conservative states where similar tales are being told on a daily basis are the ones that require Kate and Caroline."These two approximately forty-year-old doctors have joined what is known as the Red State Brain Drain, an exodus of young professionals sped up by Dobbs and the culture wars of recent years."
Noah claims that Tyler Hallstedt, a school teacher, moved from Tennessee to Michigan as a result of Republican education policies. Furthermore, according to Noah, South Carolina has "teacher shortages in 17 subject areas this school year, more than any other state," and teachers in Texas have been "quitting at a rate that's 25 percent above the national average."
"Red states are bleeding college graduates, with the exception of Texas," Noah says. Even in Florida, which is comparatively wealthy, it is occurring. Republicans may despise Joe and Jane College, but they are necessary for childbirth, education, and other necessities.to pay taxes (college graduates pay over twice as much in taxes) and to perform a variety of other functions that are exclusive to those holding undergraduate or graduate degrees. Red states ought to be welcoming to Tyler, Delana, Kate, and Caroline. Rather, they're pushing them away, which is already very expensive for them."
