Hi-tech immigrants heading home to China, India

Tech-savvy, well-educated Indian and Chinese immigrants are packing it up in greater numbers in the United States and heading back home, This, according to Duke professor and Harvard researcher Vivek Wadhwa.

He conducted a survey on why recent returnees elected to go back to India and China for the Kauffman Foundation.

"The majority of people like it better back home," Wadhwa said. "The U.S. isn't everything anymore ... This is great for India and China, but what we've done is export economic recovery."

He estimates that while 50,000 Indian and 50,000 Chinese immigrants returned home in the past 20 years, there will be 100,00 Indians and 100,000 Chinese immigrants leaving the U.S. in the next five years.

The factors driving return were not primarily visa issues, the survey found, but feelings that career opportunities were better at home, a desire to be close to friends and family, and better quality of life.

The survey randomly polled 1,203 Indian and Chinese employees in their home countries who had worked or gone to school in the U.S. and who were members of the social networking site LinkedIn.com.