Poor countries seeking economic growth through international trade expose themselves to the emigration of skilled labour. This tendency is currently exacerbated by nursing shortages in developed countries. Countries at risk for nurse emigration should adjust health sector planning to account for expected losses in personnel. Moreover, policy makers in host countries should address the impact of recruitment on source country health service delivery.

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Foreign-trained RNs now account for a substantial and growing proportion of the US RN workforce. Our findings suggest foreign-trained RNs entering the United States are not of lower quality than US-trained RNs. However, growth in the proportion of RNs from low-income countries may have negative consequences in those countries.

Continued migration from Mexico over the past several decades has created a large population of elderly Mexicans in the U.S. There is no system in Mexico for those Mexicans who would like to retire there to obtain health insurance during their retirement years. Using a nationally representative dataset of Mexican elders, we explore the current state of health insurance status for Mexican elders with a history of migration to the U.S. We find a robust negative association between years spent in the U.S. and the probability of being insured. Coordination between the U.S. and Mexico on policy options to insure Mexicans migrants may prove beneficial to the social security systems in both countries as well as to migrants themselves.