Leaving, on a jet plane
The most valuable thing Nepal produces is not a thing at all. It is an export of human ambition, packaged in a passport and a plane ticket. Every year hundreds of thousands of Nepalis leave, drawn by a basic economic calculus that fails at home. They are not abandoning the nation; the nation has failed to give them reasons to stay. For a government in Kathmandu, the pressing question then is how to channel this flow rather than how to stem it. No one, after all, should waste a good exodus.
More than 3.5m Nepalis, or over 12% of the population, now live and work abroad. Their remittances, which reached some $11bn last fiscal year, contribute a quarter of the country’s GDP. This river of foreign currency is more predictable than the monsoon rains upon which agriculture depends, and more reliable than the fiscal targets set by the Ministry of Finance. The state’s most vital economic department might as well relocate to Doha or Dubai.
The old image of the unskilled labourer toiling in a Gulf construction camp is outdated. The current leaving is increasingly one of educated youth. In 2024 alone more than 110,000 Nepalis received student visas for destinations like Australia, Britain and Japan. Very few of these students ever return to build careers at home. Calling this a “brain drain” paints it as a national tragedy. For the individuals involved, it is nothing more than sound portfolio management. A fresh graduate in Kathmandu might earn Rs25,000 a month, or about $176. A part-time barista in Melbourne can make more than double that in a week. A qualified engineer or doctor finds their skills rewarded more handsomely abroad than those of an unskilled worker. The family investment in education achieves its highest return when paired with an international airline ticket.
The logic is reinforced by a domestic economy that offers narrow paths forward. Some half a million young people enter the labour force each year. The state can provide only a sliver of formal jobs, many of which are dispensed through patronage networks. The private sector is hemmed in by red tape, as well as policy uncertainty and a lack of capital. In such an environment, geographic mobility becomes the most viable form of social mobility.
The cultural signals have flipped accordingly. Where a son in the civil service once brought a family status, today a daughter as a nurse in Sydney does the trick. Social prestige now accrues along remittance corridors. Middle-class households that once prized a local university degree now strategise for foreign residential permits. Migration, once a desperate gamble for the rural poor, has become a calculated career step for the urban aspirant.
This shift carries far-reaching, if bittersweet, social consequences. Migration was long a male endeavour. Now women leave in growing numbers for care and service work abroad, particularly in the Gulf. The strain on families left behind is severe, with well-documented impacts on children and elderly parents. Yet the economic agency these women gain is transformative. Those who were once dependents become primary breadwinners, and sometimes the founders of small businesses back home.
Other nations have learned to treat their diaspora as a distributed national asset, rather than as a loss. The Philippines deliberately trains its citizens for global labour demand and negotiates their protections abroad. Vietnam woos returnees with tech parks and tax incentives. Ireland harnessed the nostalgia and capital of its global network to fuel a domestic economic transformation. Even Lebanon, a state in perpetual crisis, structures its finances around the expectation of diaspora remittances.
Nepal by contrast muddles through with a policy of benign neglect. Labour migration is a vast, poorly regulated industry. Recruitment agencies operate with minimal oversight. Returnees receive little support to reintegrate or invest. The constitution forbids dual citizenship, a prohibition rooted in political suspicion rather than economic pragmatism. No coherent strategy exists to marry the country’s education system with global opportunities. The result is a perverse production line: universities manufacture graduates for export.
A more clear-eyed approach would start by accepting that ambition has wings. Policy should seek not to clip them but to ensure the flight benefits the individual as well as the homeland. This means rigorous oversight of recruitment to prevent exploitation. It means pre-departure training aligned with international skill demands. It demands incentives—tax breaks, seed funding, simple bureaucracy—to encourage returnees to launch businesses. It necessitates a serious debate about dual citizenship or other formal links to engage the diaspora’s capital and expertise. Remittances should be treated as investment flows waiting for a channel rather than as charitable transfers.
I think I’m goin’ to Katmandu
There is room for creativity, too. Improving digital infrastructure could turn towns from Pokhara to Kanchanpur into hubs for remote work, linking Nepali freelancers and coders to global markets. Vocational training could be designed in consultation with diaspora networks who understand international trends. “Reverse scholarships” or startup visas could tempt skilled professionals home. None of this is revolutionary. It is merely the standard playbook for countries that view their people as a resource, whether they reside within the borders or beyond them.
The long-term goal should be to foster a circularity of talent and capital. Migration can be more than a remittance pipeline: it can be a conduit for knowledge and a network for trade, as well as a school for cosmopolitan leadership. There is no inherent shame in exporting talent. The folly is in failing to import its dividends. For the moment the common sense of ambition leads away from the Himalayan valleys. With wiser policy it might one day lead back again. ■
