The Paradox of Bhutan’s Australian Dream

When then Australian Prime Minister Robert Gordon Menzies invited the Royal Government of Bhutan to observe the Colombo Plan meeting in 1962, no one predicted the initiation of diplomatic connections between the two countries would lead to the eventual development of Bhutan’s largest diaspora group.

Fast forward four decades to 2022, and the first Bhutanese film to ever be nominated for an Academy Award was Pawo C. Dorji’s “Lunana, A Yak in the Classroom.” Pawo’s story of a young, discontented Bhutanese teacher convinced of greener pastures Down Under was globally received with praise and the usual hullabaloo lamenting the loss of traditional ways of life to the machine of modernity and globalization. Unfortunately, the reality is that the story of “Lunana” is far more daunting. While aspirations of mobility and building new lives in a foreign land are presumed to only afflict the youth, attrition and retention rates in critical sectors and industries in Bhutan tell a different story.

Presently, more than 30,000 Bhutanese reside in Australia, and since the opening of borders in 2022, the numbers have only continued to increase. Although movement to Australia started with human resource development aid for Bhutanese civil servants in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Australia’s growing brand as an international education destination has expanded the doors for any Bhutanese aspiring to migrate. Observers have also noted that several eminent members of Bhutan’s current ruling government earned graduate degrees in Australian universities, signaling soft power returns for the Australian government.

While the success stories of economic prosperity and mobility afforded to Bhutanese continue to fuel the domestic fervor of hopeful visa applicants, an unaccounted consequence that the Bhutanese state failed to anticipate is the unprecedented rates of attrition in its domestic medical, education, and civil service sectors.

Over the last year, over 800 civil servants across various national agencies voluntarily resigned, with an average rate of 102 resignations every month. These numbers may seem insignificant, but for a small landlocked country with a population of 750,000, each resignation signals the slow disintegration of much-needed government and bureaucratic capacity. As a welfare state that mandates universal education and healthcare for all its citizens, Bhutan was already working with limited human capital means, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. This issue has now been exacerbated by the mass exodus of its most productive demographic group. For instance, the World Health Organization recommends a doctor-population ratio of one to 1,000 people; in Bhutan, there is one doctor for every 5,000 citizens.

Locally, plenty of apprehension and concerns attend this growing exodus. Almost every second day, there is a new story or editorial asking the same questions: Why are our youth leaving? Why are Bhutanese leaving their beautiful snow-capped mountains, their close-knit families and communities, and sometimes even leaving secure jobs or businesses to go work blue-collar jobs in a Western country? Isn’t Bhutan the country of Gross National Happiness? Why are citizens leaving their utopian Shangri-La to slog, toil, and grease the machine of capitalism?

The answer, many say, is simply “Gokap ra mindu!” (“There are no opportunities!”)