Migration is one of the oldest phenomena that accompanied the development of human society, sometimes causing clashes between peoples, cultures and civilizations. Recent events or from a not too distant past of Europe show that tensions created by migratory movements often have an impact on political and economic relations between countries, cultures and religions.

The Romanian reality shows that after 1989 the resident population experienced a decline. According to the National Institute of Statistics, in the period 1989-2012, Romania's population decreased by about 3.1 million, this reduction being due to both  migration phenomenon and negative natural increase of  population. Some statistic records also show that the extremes are usually among those who decide to emigrate. On the one hand those who are choosing this path are individuals with low income and a low or medium level of education; on the other hand, we can find the phenomenon of brain drain. It is alarming that among those who choose to emigrate are registered young people able to work, this generating the problem of funding on medium and long term the social services.

Starting from such aspects, this paper aims to highlight key issues regarding the intention of emigration of highly educated young people. Using quantitative and qualitative methods the authors of this paper aim to identify some possible causes that may determine the highly educated youth to emigrate, evaluate some possible effects due to this phenomenon and to find proposals to limit the negative effects of demographic decline.