Marshall University Marshall Digital Scholar Theses, Dissertations and Capstones 2014 The Geography of Stuck: Exceptions to Brain Drain in West Virginia Lindsay Heinemann
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://mds.marshall.edu/etd Part of the Demography, Population, and Ecology Commons, Educational Sociology Commons, Human Geography Commons, Place and Environment Commons, and the Regional Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Heinemann, Lindsay, "The Geography of Stuck: Exceptions to Brain Drain in West Virginia" (2014). Theses, Dissertations and Capstones. Paper 832. This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Marshall Digital Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses, Dissertations and Capstones by an authorized administrator of Marshall Digital Scholar. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. The Geography of Stuck: Exceptions to Brain Drain in West Virginia A thesis submitted to the Graduate College of Marshall University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Sociology by Lindsay Heinemann Approved by Richard Garnett, Ph.D., Committee Chairperson Markus Hadler, Ph.D. Kristi Fondren, Ph.D. Marshall University May 2014 ABSTRACT The Geography of Stuck: Exceptions to Brain Drain in West Virginia By Lindsay Heinemann Brain drain, also known as “human capital flight,” can be defined as “the mass emigration of technically skilled people from one country to another country” (Weeks, 2008, p. 250) or one state to another state. This theory surmises that highly skilled people or those with high education levels are more likely to migrate from places with little to no economic opportunities to places with better economic and job opportunities.