Gay Brain Drain: Migration out of a Place Because of the Lack of Legal Protection for LGB People

This paper coins the term ‘gay brain drain’ to connect the two research literatures on sexual migration and brain drain. It relies on Hong Kong as an empirical case, where there is a lack of protection against sexual orientation discrimination and same-sex relationship recognition. An online survey conducted with 1,026 lesbian, gay and bisexual people in August 2016, one of the largest of its kind in Hong Kong, found that 39 per cent had considered leaving Hong Kong because of the lack of legal protection against discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation; 48 per cent had considered leaving because same-sex marriage was not legalised or recognised in Hong Kong; and 26 per cent had considered leaving because of the difficulties facing same-sex partners who wanted children. At the same time, the LGB people in the survey were relatively very well-educated, with 48 per cent having obtained an undergraduate degree, and 23 per cent holding a master’s degree or above; 72 per cent of them were 29 years old or below. This paper makes several contributions to the research literature. First, it is one of the first studies to provide empirical quantitative evidence to the phenomenon of sexual migration. Second, it argues that sexual orientation discrimination is not only costly for individuals and the workplace, but also society at large. Third, it seeks to reorient social policy debates about sexual orientation based rights in Hong Kong and Asia, where discussions have been overshadowed by discussions on culture and religion, to a more evidence based approach.