ABSTRACT Education occupies a central position in Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), reflecting the assumption that expanding educational attainment strengthens domestic human capital and long‐run development capacity. However, across many developing economies, rapid education expansion has coincided with persistent skilled emigration, raising concerns about the sustainability of human capital formation. This study examines whether SDG‐4‐driven education expansion translates into sustained domestic human capital accumulation or inadvertently accelerates its externalization. Using an unbalanced panel of 80 developing economies spanning 1995–2023, the study integrates education expansion, skilled emigration, and structural conditions within a human capital sustainability framework. The analysis employs Cross‐Sectionally Augmented ARDL (CS‐ARDL) and Dynamic Common Correlated Effects Mean Group (DCCE‐MG) estimators to account for cross‐sectional dependence, heterogeneity, and long‐run dynamics. The results reveal three core findings. First, education expansion significantly increases skilled emigration, indicating that rising educational attainment enhances the international portability of skills. Second, skilled emigration exerts a strong and negative effect on human capital sustainability, substantially offsetting the long‐run domestic returns to education investment. Third, weak labor market absorption and fragile institutions amplify education‐induced migration while eroding the sustainability gains from education. These findings challenge attainment‐centered interpretations of SDG 4 and demonstrate that education expansion, when decoupled from structural capacity, can undermine its own sustainability objectives. The study advances human capital sustainability as a critical lens for aligning education policy with sustainable development outcomes.
Liu et al. (Tue,) studied this question.
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