Emigration of Health and Information and Communication Technology Professionals from Bosnia and Herzegovina: Challenges and Opportunities

The research aims to analyse the scale, drivers and impact of emigration on health and ICT professionals from Bosnia and Herzegovina. It consists of the following thematic areas: (a) analysis of emigration trends and demographic data of emigrants; (b) analysis of drivers of emigration; and (c) analysis of the impact of emigration.

The main research questions analysed in the research are as follows: 

(a) What is the scale of emigration from the health and ICT sectors (that is, demographic and skills profile of emigrants) in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

(b) What are the driving factors of Bosnia and Herzegovina emigrants from these two sectors to move abroad?

(c) What is the impact of emigration of health and ICT professionals in Bosnia and Herzegovina on the following areas:

(i) Health service with focus on availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of health services, including regional disparities;

(ii) ICT industry development;

(iii) Educational enrolment and quality of provision of educational programmes.

The approach for addressing this research was a mixed methods approach, with the use of desk review (quantitative data from surveys and official statistics, policy and literature analysis) and qualitative research (key informant interviews), with triangulation of findings produced by using different methods.