A senior Russian Academy of Sciences scholar estimated last week that Russia’s brain drain among highly qualified workers doubled between 2013 and 2016.

Every second Russian PhD student wants to immigrate in search of better employment opportunities, according to new research published by a Russian university.

Months after finding that a growing number of educated Russians were leaving the country for economic and political reasons, the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) found that exactly half of postgraduate students were ready to relocate to get a “good job.”

Only 28.2 percent of students with a vocational education and 39.2 percent of those with a basic education said they would be willing to move.

“As the education level increases, so does the young people’s willingness to seek work in other countries,” researchers at RANEPA said.

The study’s authors explain the disparity as a twofold effect of better employment opportunities abroad being granted to a higher-educated segment of the population, and fewer employment opportunities at home.

Ranepa carried out its research among the working population aged 18 to 30 in the regions of Ivanovo, Sverdlovsk and Novosibirsk last year.