Dads wrestle with new option: paternity leave

2:00 PM leave, option, paternity, wrestle No Comments

To take paternity leave or not to take it? That is the question for many new dads.
For many working dads, having a baby is a joyous event – but figuring out whether to take some time off from work with that newborn is fraught with anxiety.

For one thing, babies are expensive – and not many companies offer dads paid time off.

Yahoo Inc. drew plenty of accolades earlier this year when it announced a policy granting new dads up to eight weeks of paid paternity leave, with benefits. But experts say that kind of generosity is far outside the norm.

The Families and Work Institute, a research organization that studies how families are changing, found that only 14 percent of employers who provide paternity leave pay for some of Dad’s time off.

Even if you can afford to take some time without pay, many dads may feel hesitant to be out of the office for more than a few days.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that many dads also are shy to take paternity leave because of the stigma attached. The Journal also noted that many dads who take time out of the office still end doing some work at home, besides the work of caring for a newborn.

Advocates say they have been heartened by companies like Yahoo extending generous paid policies to dads, and they hope that will spur more companies to offer those benefits. Still, many companies would argue that such perks are expensive.

“The more you can make it possible for people to take care of their personal needs during life-changing moments, the easier it is for them to get back to being productive employees as well,” Kenneth Matos, senior director of employment research and practice at the Families and Work Institute, told TODAY in April.

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Yahoo's long paternity leave unrealistic, some dads say

9:30 AM leave, paternity, unrealistic, Yahoos No Comments

The eight weeks of paid paternity leave that Yahoo male employees now receive, thanks to the company’s generous new policy, makes plenty of dads envious of all that time for bonding with baby.

Yet for many dads, the lengthy time the company is offering seems too good to be true, and maybe even unrealistic. Because while it would be a dream to have a guilt-free two month leave from work, many say they feel pressure – whether self-inflicted or external -- to get back to work.

“That’s nuts,” Matt McCain of Woodinville, Wash., says of the Yahoo policy. But McCain, a father of two who took a month off after both of his kids were born, says that if his company offered eight weeks leave, he would only consider taking that chunk of time off if it could be split up over time and not have to be taken consecutively.

“I wouldn’t take it all at once,” says McCain, creative director at Seattle advertising agency Wongdoody. “I know that after a month, most guys are ready to get back to the work routine.”

McCain was thankful to be of help to his wife, who had difficult recoveries due to cesarean sections. He says that while he thinks some guys can be “guilt-driven” during leave, he was able to disconnect for the entire month he was off, and cites his company’s family-friendly environment for being able to do so. “I felt no pressure to get back, but could see that happening in places that are more cut-throat.”

And while he says his overall paternity leave was a positive time where he bonded with his kids, he’d do it differently. He knows of co-workers who delayed their leave for when the baby was older, an idea he thinks is great.

“The babies in their first month, they just kind of lay there. Three months in, you get much more give and take with them,” he said. “If I knew then what I know now, I might have split it up. Make it more fun.”

Jane Waldfogel, an expert on family leave at the Compton Foundation Centennial Professor of Social Work at Columbia University, says that “the typical American father takes a week or two of leave.”

“That’s obviously quite short, considering that all evidence shows that if a father takes leave in the early weeks and months of a baby’s life, he’s more likely to become a partner in the child’s care,” Waldfogel says.

Odin Zackman of Berkeley, Calif., recently took five weeks of leave from his job to bond with his wife Mara and infant son Noah.

“Our midwife was very clear to us. ‘Mara, you feed the baby -- that is your responsibility. Odin, you do everything else.’ I was the diaper dude, the king of swaddle. I taught Mara how to do all that stuff,” he says.

But Zackman says he knows his case is unique because he runs his own management consulting business. He’s the only employee so he set his own paternity leave policy. That said, he gave business partners and vendors “full disclosure” so they knew months in advance that he was taking time off.

“I could have taken a bit longer, but I was definitely ready to get back to focusing on work,” he said, adding that working with sleep deprivation has taken a bit of getting used to.

Flexible work environments and paternity leaves, of course, only come with certain territories. There are plenty of other job industries that just aren’t conducive.

Bill Yu, a partner in a Chicago law firm, says he isn’t even sure what his firm’s paternity benefits are, but says an official policy doesn’t matter to him because since his work hours are flexible, he wouldn’t use paternity leave. “Our industry is based on the billable hour. If you miss some time for vacation or having a baby, you make it up later.”

When Yu’s first child, age 4, was born, he took some time off but recalls he still worked at night and when the baby was sleeping. When his second, age 2, was born, he didn’t take any time off. “We kind of knew what we were doing with the second one,” he says, adding that his wife also works so they have child care help from a nanny and relatives.

While there is some belief that bosses can play a large role in whether a new dad feels comfortable taking all of the leave they are allotted, Waldfogel says employers are becoming more used to men taking some kind of leave.


“One important thing to keep in mind about both paternity and maternity leave is that these are pretty rare events in the life of a worker,” she says. “A typical family has just two children so that means a father or mother being out on parental leave only a few times during their entire career. And, the leaves involved are still quite short.”

For McCain, the Seattle advertising executive, having understanding bosses makes all the difference.

“[My bosses] are dads. They want employees with happy families – it’s a big part of working here,” says McCain, who has been at the agency for 13 years. “That has kept me around. I get a good work-life balance.”

Linda Carroll contributed to this report.

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Working moms redefining maternity leave

12:30 PM leave, maternity, redefining, Working No Comments

On the surface, maternity leave is simple: You have a baby, you take time off work to take care of yourself and your baby, and then you go back to work.

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But now a new breed of working mom is quickly redefining the concept.

From Marissa Mayer, who assumed the helm as CEO of Yahoo while six months pregnant and announced she’d only be taking “a few weeks of leave” that she’d “work through,” to moms who use the “downtime” to launch new businesses, they’ve certainly changed the new mommy landscape.

The question is: By working through mat leave—or using that time to alternate between 4 a.m. breast-feeding sessions and hatching a business plan—are they helping or hurting women? And have we officially entered the age of the maternity leave overachiever?

Dr. Jennifer Gardner, a pediatrician, used her maternity leave after the birth of her first child, William, to jumpstart an idea she had been sitting on for years: Healthy Kids Company, which educates families on the importance of nutrition.

“Maternity leave was actually a great time to start working on it. I knew I was eventually going to return to full-time work as a pediatrician, but while my son was sleeping, I had the free hours necessary to build my website,” she says. ”Starting a company to educate families had always been a passion of mine, but prior to maternity leave, I didn’t really have the time to devote to my idea.”

“My maternity leave was my security blanket,” agrees Bridget O’Brien, a former New York City school teacher who used her time away two years ago to found her own PR and event planning firm. “For years, I had been doing event planning free of charge for friends, nonprofits and charities. Working as a public school teacher in New York City is a noble job, but I hated the political aspect behind the scenes.”

O’Brien talked the idea through with her husband — she knew she would be happier and that it would create a better environment for their daughter. "I would be able to work from home and set my own schedule,” she explains, so she used her mat leave to start amassing clients. After giving birth in January 2010, she officially launched her company in May of that year.

In fact, O’Brien says that while running her own business can be stressful, she doesn’t resent her even busier schedule. “The day I gave birth to my second child two weeks ago, I was also doing PR for an event in New Jersey with Bravo and the 'Real Housewives,' ” she says. “Though I was in labor and handling work on my cell phone, it’s easier because it’s my own company. If I were doing this for someone else, I wouldn’t have been as passionate.”

'Craving certainty'
Sure, some women are born overachievers, you might argue—and good for them. But in the wake of Mayer’s announcement, many wondered whether her decision to forgo a traditional maternity leave would put other working women at risk.

In the online magazine Slate, one writer opined: “Mayer needs time to emotionally and physically recover … [it's] nuts to forget that there is a BABY involved here.”

Others queried whether her decision would set a bad example for other women looking to juggle motherhood and a career: Namely, would HR departments and bosses then expect more new moms to follow suit—by literally suiting up again mere weeks after giving birth?

And why did Mayer—and other ladies who choose to launch when they have an ambitious new project to tackle at home—feel the need?

“For some women, working through pregnancy or using the same set of skills used on the job while on leave may be an effort to maintain normalcy,” says Jonathan Alpert, psychotherapist and author of “Be Fearless: Change Your Life in 28 Days.”

The brain is craving certainty, says Alpert, so if overachieving is your norm, it may actually be hard to slow down—even with a newborn to contend with. “While working hard may not be advisable from a physical perspective,” he explains, “it may be a positive coping mechanism that helps the mother deal with the uncertainty associated with a baby.”

In other words, staying in work mode may allow frazzled new moms—used to a demanding work routine—to maintain some sense of their former selves.

Another weighty question: Is our inability to be home with our babies—without refashioning ourselves as CEOs while they nap—something innate in modern-day women, or a response to outside pressure?

The need to overachive
“Women get stuck in a cycle of fear where they can’t see all the other things that are important in life,” says Shari Goldsmith, a life coach and mental health therapist. “It’s often difficult to be a woman in a workplace, and some fears related to falling behind may be valid.”

But there’s also a difference between a natural-born entrepreneur who just happens to have a newborn and someone who’s having a hard time transitioning from her 24/7 attachment to her Blackberry. Or worrying that being away for that amount of time could cause her to fall behind on the job.

“The reality is that women notice and respond to those subtle societal pressures to be better, stronger and smarter, and they make choices accordingly,” says mom of two Samantha Krigsvold. “As a professional woman, breadwinner and mother of two young children, my choice to take an abbreviated maternity leave was absolutely tied to an underlying pressure to prove I could handle it all.”

The experts agree: “Women hear over and over again the message that they’re supposed to be able to manage it all—a career and a family. When it comes to taking maternity leave, there are very real fears of being seen as uncompetitive or dispensable,” says Ford Myers, a career coach and author of “Get the Job You Want, Even When No One’s Hiring.”

Isn’t having a baby enough?
Then again, for many women, wanting to go back to work at all, let alone double down on it during their downtime, just doesn’t compute.

“Any woman who says she wants to go back to work full time as soon as possible after giving birth is not being honest with herself,” argues Krigsvold.

And what of the need to physically recover? While celebrity magazines trumpeting A-listers’ ability to “lose the baby weight” in record time may be contributing to the rise of the bionic new mom, the fact is birth—whether by a natural delivery or a surgical procedure like a C-section—takes a toll.

“I believe every mother deserves proper recovery time, and only the mother can determine what the ‘right’ amount of time is for her,” says Charissa Duncan Mathews, a LearnVest reader in Tulsa, Okla.

The bottom line is that there’s no one-size-fits-all policy that suits all new moms. But, says one expert, using your maternity leave as a litmus test can be a good exercise to figure out what you want your new life to look like.

Make maternity leave work for you
If you’re the type who’s been sitting on a big business idea, but caught up (for years) in your day-to-day, a whole new routine could be just what it takes to wake up your get-up-and-go.

Maternity leave can also provide valuable insight into how your company will respond to your new role as a working mom: “What I tell my clients is that if their employer isn’t going to be understanding early that you need to take maternity leave for your own sake and for the well being of your child, they’re not going to be understanding later on, when it comes to doctors’ appointments, school meetings and more,” says Myers. “So if you do end up losing this job as a result of having taken maternity leave … it probably wouldn’t have ended up working later on, either.”

LearnVest © 2012

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New mandates for paid sick leave raise hackles

12:28 PM hackles, leave, mandates, raise No Comments

Correction: This post has been corrected from an earlier version, which included incorrect data on the number of small businesses offering paid sick leave.

The only thing worse than staying home sick with chills and a fever or a hacking cough is having to be at work while battling illness. Yet for many workers, especially those who work for small businesses that don't offer sick leave, that is a very real choice.

Federal law does not require business to offer paid sick leave, and many businesses are abandoning the benefit, but now some state and local governments are stepping into the breach, ringing alarm bells for some small business owners.

"People will lose jobs," said Darlene M. Miller, president and CEO of Permac Industries.

If governments mandate paid sick time, "it will ultimately make small manufacturers like my company less competitive, and reduce the work that we win in our bidding," she said in an email. 

The idea of a national mandate for paid sick leave was kicked around a few years ago in the wake of the "swine flu" scare, when many policymakers came around to the idea of paying contagious workers to stay home. But the idea never became law, and no action is expected from the current, deeply divided Congress.

But some smaller governments are acting.

Connecticut now requires companies to give full-time workers five paid sick days a year, and a law that goes into effect later this year in Seattle will require firms with five or more employees to provide paid sick leave. Similar efforts are under way in New York City, Philadelphia and Massachusetts. Proponents say these laws protect low-wage workers — and prevent them from passing contagious illnesses onto the public many of them serve. 

"It's just really difficult for someone whose earnings are just getting them by to give up just one day's pay," says Sherry Leiwant, co-founder and co-president of advocacy group A Better Balance. "It's just not going to work to say to people, 'Stay home when you're sick' if they need that money to put food on the table." 

Leiwant said 82 percent of restaurant workers and 64 percent of retail workers in New York City don't get paid time off when they're sick. This is somewhat alarming in a city where so many people encounter waiters and cashiers on a daily basis. Among all small business, defined as those with fewer than 50 employees, only 32 percent offered paid sick leave in 2011, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. 

Advocates like Leiwant believe legislation is the best way to to increase that percentage, but pro-business groups say paid sick-leave requirements do more harm than good. "I think it's important to have paid time off, but it's a question of what the employer can afford," said Helen Darling, president and CEO of the National Business Group on Health. 

"Any mandate basically means that some other things have to go," like health insurance, raises or even additional jobs, she said. 

Darling said employees who do get paid sick time take unfair advantage of it, calling out disproportionately on Fridays and Mondays. 

Denise Fleury, senior consultant in health and benefits business at Mercer, said dealing with absenteeism is a challenge for small businesses but disputed the idea that employees take advantage of paid sick days. "When you have a smaller company, it's more of a community, so I would think abuse of sick leave would be not as prevalent as people might think," she said.

The question of how much it costs to pay sick employees when they're not at work is hotly contested. The NBGH's position statement says a national mandate for companies to provided paid sick days would cost businesses up to $35.3 billion annually. 

Other groups have come up with much lower figures. When the Economic Policy Institute calculated how much businesses in Connecticut would be affected by the state's sick-time law, it estimated the cost to be 0.05 percent of sales across all industries.

Should businesses be required to offer a minimum amount of paid sick leave?

Brian Drum, CEO of executive recruiting firm Drum Associates, said an alternative is for companies to give employees a certain number of paid days off without dividing that pool into categories.

"They really don't want to have the burden of worrying about what's sick time and what's vacation," he said. A growing number of the companies already use this "paid time off" model because it's easier from an administrative perspective, he said.

But companies that don't give their workers any paid time off might need a law to compel them, he acknowledged. "To mandate it isn't a bad thing," he said. "The companies that might not do it probably ought to do it, because people do get sick from time to time."

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NYU's Roubini: Greece should default, leave euro

4:18 PM default, Greece, leave, Roubini, should No Comments

Luca Bruno / AP

Greece should start an orderly default, voluntarily leave the euro zone and return to its former currency the drachma in order to avoid a “vicious cycle of insolvency, low competitiveness and ever-deepening depression,” economist Nouriel Roubini said in a column published in the Financial Times Monday.

Roubini, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business who gained renown for accurately calling the housing bubble, said other potential options for helping the debt-stricken country -- including a weakening of the euro, a reduction in Greek unit labor costs or a rapid deflation in prices and wages -- are impractical and likely won’t work.

The process of defaulting and leaving the euro zone would be “traumatic,” Roubini said, but “a return to a national currency and a sharp depreciation would quickly restore competitiveness and growth, as it did in Argentina and many other emerging markets which abandoned their currency pegs.”

Fears that Greece may default on its sovereign debt and leave the euro zone have grown in recent days. Euro zone countries are becoming frustrated that the nation appears unable to meet the fiscal targets set out under its international bailout.

A poll of economists released by Reuters Friday showed that, while Greece will likely default on its debt within a year, there is only a one-in-five chance it will leave the euro zone.

The Reuters poll of more than 50 economists across Europe gave a 65 percent chance Greece would default. Half of the poll’s respondents said Greece would likely default within 12 months.

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Top wish rich Chinese? Leave China

12:08 PM China, Chinese, leave No Comments

BEIJING — Chinese millionaire Su builds skyscrapers in Beijing and is one of the people powering China's economy on its path to becoming the world's biggest.

He sits at the top of a country — economy booming, influence spreading, military swelling — widely expected to dominate the 21st century.

Yet the property developer shares something surprising with many newly rich in China: he's looking forward to the day he can leave.

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Su's reasons: He wants to protect his assets, he has to watch what he says in China and wants a second child, something against the law for many Chinese.

The millionaire spoke to The Associated Press on condition that only his surname was used because of fears of government reprisals that could damage his business.

China's richest are increasingly investing abroad to get a foreign passport, to make international business and travel easier but also to give them a way out of China.

The United States is the most popular destination for Chinese emigrants, with rich Chinese praising its education and healthcare systems. Last year, nearly 68,000 Chinese-born people became legal permanent residents of the U.S., seven percent of the total and second only to those born in Mexico. Canada and Australia are also popular.

It is a bothersome trend for China's communist leaders who've pinned the legitimacy of one-party rule on delivering rapid economic growth and a rising standard of living. They've succeeded in lifting tens of millions of ordinary Chinese out of poverty while also creating a new class of super rich. Yet affluence alone seems a poor bargain to those with the means to live elsewhere.

Despite more economic freedom, the communist government has kept its tight grip on many other aspects of daily life. China's leaders punish, sometimes harshly, public dissent and any perceived challenges to their power, and censor what can be read online and in print. Authoritarian rule, meanwhile, has proved ineffective in addressing long standing problems of pollution, contaminated food and a creaking health care system.

"In China, nothing belongs to you. Like buying a house. You buy it but it will belong to the country 70 years later," said Su, lamenting the government's land leasing system.

"But abroad, if you buy a house, it belongs to you forever," he said. "Both businessmen and government officials are like this. They worry about the security of their assets."

Leo Liu, marketing manager at Beijing emigration consultants Goldlink, said the company has noticed an increasing trend of rich Chinese wanting to emigrate, particularly to Canada, in the 15 years since it was founded.

Education, better healthcare
The main reasons people want to move abroad, he said, are their children's education and for better healthcare. Some want to leave because they got their money illegally, such as corrupt government officials and businesspeople, while others are inspired by friends who have already emigrated to the U.S.

"They want to get a green card even though they may still do business here in China," Liu said. "They might have sent their wife and children abroad.

"And some of them just love life in a foreign country, the Western style," he said.

There is also a yawning gap between rich and poor in China, which feeds a resentment that makes some of the wealthy uncomfortable. The country's uneven jump to capitalism over the last three decades has created dozens of billionaires, but China barely ranks in the top 100 on a World Bank list of countries by income per person.

Getting a foreign passport is like "taking out an insurance policy," said Rupert Hoogewerf, who compiles the Hurun Rich List, China's version of the Forbes list.

"If there is political unrest or suddenly things change in China — because it's a big country, something could go wrong — they already have a passport to go overseas. It's an additional safety net."

Among the 20,000 Chinese with at least 100 million yuan ($15 million) in individual investment assets, 27 percent have already emigrated and 47 percent are considering it, according to a report by China Merchants Bank and U.S. consultants Bain & Co. published in April.

Nearly 60 percent of the people surveyed said worries over their children's education are a reason for wanting to leave.

A millionaire who works in the coal industry, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said the main push behind his plans to emigrate is China's test-centric school system, often criticized for producing students who can pass exams but who lack skills for the world of work.

He will take his 7-year-old to the U.S. as soon as the child graduates from junior high at an international school in Beijing where pupils are instructed in English.

"The U.S. has a good educational system and excellent health care," said the 39-year-old, who has three homes in China and assets worth $5 million. "That's why we look forward to going there."

Retiring abroad?
Other top motivations cited in the Merchants Bank study are to protect assets and to prepare for retirement. Also cited as reasons for leaving: having more children and making it easier to develop an overseas business.

Alongside increased emigration there has also been a massive outflow of private money from China despite its strict currency controls. The report estimates that rich Chinese — those with assets of more than 10 million yuan — have about 3.6 trillion yuan ($564 billion) invested overseas.

"The Chinese economy now looks like a massive funnel," said Zhong Dajun, director of the non-governmental Dajun Center for Economic Observation & Studies in Beijing.

Zhong said it is mostly corrupt government officials who transfer entire fortunes overseas because they have been illegally acquired and "they have fears and feel guilty."

Wealthy Russians have also been establishing footholds abroad for the past decade, seeking a safe haven both for their money and their children. In recent years, the trend has extended to Russia's emerging middle class. They cannot afford to invest in London, a favorite destination for Russia's billionaires and millionaires, so have been setting up second homes in less expensive European countries, including those like the Czech Republic that were once part of the Soviet bloc.

Su, the property developer, intends to stay in China and continue building residential high-rises and office buildings for another 10 years because he fears it would be too difficult for him to replicate his mainland business success abroad.

His wife is already in the U.S., expecting their second child. Under China's one-child policy in place for the last three decades to control population growth, couples can be penalized for having more than one child. In Beijing, the penalty is a one-off fee 3-10 times the city's average income, a maximum of 250,000 yuan ($40,000).

"The living conditions abroad are better, like residential conditions, food safety and education," said the millionaire as he dined in the VIP room of a Beijing restaurant. Lowering his voice, he said for many rich there are worries about the authoritarian government. "This is a very sensitive topic. Everyone knows this. It's freer and more just abroad," he said.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Why immigrants leave U.S. entrepreneurs

4:35 PM entrepreneurs, immigrants, leave No Comments

Discussed in a speech to employees, President Obama the role immigrants last week to Facebook, play the entrepreneur in U.S. economic competitiveness. "We want more Andy Groves here in the United States", he said the amount start touch success on the Hungarian American entrepreneur. "We them start Intel in China, or start it in France will not."

Unfortunately back not our President his words with action. He said simply, "comprehensive immigration reform," would support, the legislation that has passed no chance. This is because it tries to fix the problems with immigration at the same time. Most Americans support legislation more doctors, scientists and entrepreneurs admit, but they are deeply divided on the issue of amnesty for illegal immigrants. We are in a chaotic standoff.

Our leaders seem to not understand the urgency of the situation. You don't realize how much has changed the world. Now, entrepreneurs see abundant opportunities in countries such as India and China. The world can stay at the best and brightest home and as much success as possible in the US qualified workers in the United States achieve immigrated, what they are optimistic, options; many are headed home.

BusinessWeek: ' start ' visa boost could U.S. entrepreneurship

My team at Duke, UC Berkeley, Harvard and explores the role entrepreneurs, the qualified immigrants in U.S. competitiveness play. After we published our study on the reverse brain drain, many scientists and policy makers entrepreneur frustrated in their home countries I would and back in the United States she referred to India's poor infrastructure, China's authoritarianism and the corruption and bureaucracy in both countries.

This prediction seemed wrong based on our observations during visits in India and China, so we it learn a project of the entrepreneurial landscape started. More than eight months, we interviewed 153 workers had studied or worked in the United States and returned to India to company, and 111, that went back to China. Explains our findings in our new study. It shows that entrepreneurs do better at home most of the returnees as they believe that they would do in the United States

Why do they return home?
Due to the growing economies access to local markets and family ties. More than 60 percent of Indian and 90 percent of the Chinese returnees said the economic opportunities in their countries were an important factor on their return. 78 Percent of the Chinese were from the local markets, were curled as 53 percent of the Indians. And 76 percent of Indians and 51 percent of the Chinese said family ties were strong factors.

BusinessWeek special report: businessman at the heart

Surveyed took pride in the fact, contribute to the economic development of their home country. More than 60 percent of Indians and 51 percent of the Chinese rated it as very important. Incentives were not at all important for Indian Government, but were very important to 23 percent of the Chinese. Only 10 percent of Indians and Chinese said that they are leaving the United States, because they had to; others can frustrated about their visa situation but others have been, had more important reasons for home.

How their situation in their home countries in comparison to the United States?
Surprisingly, said 72 percent of the Indian and 81 percent of the Chinese returnees, the ways to launch you were their own business better in their home countries. Speed of professional growth was also better for the majority of the Indians (54 per cent) and Chinese (68 percent) home. And the quality of life was better or at least equal to what she had enjoyed in the United States for 56 percent of the Indians and 59 percent of the Chinese.

What are the advantages of doing business in India and China?
More than 70 percent of the Indians rank operating costs and staff salaries as a very important benefits. reported more than 60 percent of the Chinese as well. Seventy-six percent of the Chinese rank access to local markets as very important; 64 Percent of Indians ranked it the same.

Optimism in terms of the fast-growing economies has also a big difference. Indians and Chinese (55 per cent and 53 per cent, respectively) the mood saw in their countries as a very important advantage. And as you would expect, given the support the Chinese Government offers companies, far more important support (31 percent) Chinese Government keep as Indians (7 percent).

There is a silver lining to this cloud.

Yes, return that entrepreneurs in India and China their privileged position in the global economy will exploit company building, the access to the lower cost benefits and expanding markets and business networks in their home countries. And Yes, we would benefit if all of this startup activity in the United States but it happens is also a bi-directional circulation of ideas and possibilities. According to exchange of information to our study, a majority of the returnees business with their counterparts in the United States at least monthly; about one third do it weekly or more frequently. The accumulation of links between entrepreneurs in Bangalore and Beijing, and entrepreneurs in the United States offers opportunities for mutually beneficial growth.

BusinessWeek: America's most promising startups

Our policy makers need urgently to realize that we are in the competition and cooperation at the same time in a new era. While we the brain drain cannot stop, we can the playing field level through the setting of our immigration system. Let's visa for one million engineers, scientists, doctors, and researchers and their families who are lawful in the United States available, but caught in immigration limbo with increase in the number of permanent residents. To speed up its passage, let us decouple the startup visa legislation from the comprehensive immigration reform package. Then we can focus on recruiting entrepreneurs from around the world on our turf, play as President Obama calls.

Vivek Wadhwa is visiting scholar at University of California-Berkeley, senior research fellow at the Harvard law school and Director of research at the Center for entrepreneurship and research commercialization at Duke University.

Copyright © 2011 Bloomberg L.P.

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