IT Career aspirations in Bangladesh: a Trigger for development?

ABSTRACT

Saxenian’s concept of ‘brain circulation’ explains how a developing country can benefit when its diaspora community returns home to accelerate economic growth, but it says little about who leaves a country in the first place, and why they leave. We consider this issue in the context of Bangladesh’s IT sector and focus on university students’ aspirations for careers abroad. Based on a survey of 591 undergraduate IT students, we find that students’ aspirations bifurcate into those hoping to work in English-speaking developed countries and those expecting to remain in Bangladesh, and that the difference correlates with parental income, attendance at elite universities, gender, and the presence of role models. We also find that parental income is predictive of what factors students value in a job. Findings are discussed in relation to socio-cognitive career theory, with implications for interventions that could improve IT brain circulation in Bangladesh and beyond.

KEYWORDS:

• IT sector
• brain circulation
• career aspiration
• Bangladesh
• human resource development

Acknowledgments

We are deeply grateful to the faculty who assisted with this study, as well as the students who responded to the survey in Bangladesh.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tsuyoshi Kano

Tsuyoshi Kano is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan School of Information, advised by Prof. Kentaro Toyama. His research interest is ICT industry development, digital human resource development, and innovation ecosystem in developing countries. His research interests are built by his extensive practical experiences as (1) an economic development program officer at an international aid organization and (2) an IT engineer (programmer, IT architect, and project manager) at a private company. Based on his diverse experiences, he is interested in approaching social issues (especially Bangladesh and Rwanda) from various perspectives such as psychology, information science, management, and development economics.

Abdul Matin Sheikh

Abdul Matin Skeikh (Maheen) is one of the rising entrepreneurs of Bangladesh. He is very dynamic, hardworking and passionate person who wishes to touch sky if possible. He is one of very few young leading persons who already achieved many international awards as recognition of his contribution for education sector of Bangladesh. He studied in Hitotsubashi University at International Public Policy School, Japan, as a graduate student for 2014-2016. He was also Research Student at Business school of Hitotsubashi University for 2012-2103. He completed his Diploma on ‘Social Innovation and Business’ from Institute of Innovation Research (IIR) in 2011 under IIR Scholarship. In addition, he achieved a Graduate Diploma from University of Texas, USA. Prior to that, he achieved his Undergraduate Degree from University of Dhaka, Bangladesh at the Department of Development Studies in 2011.

Kentaro Toyama

Kentaro Toyama is W.K. Kellogg Professor of Community Information at the University of Michigan School of Information and a fellow of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT. He is the author of Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology.