For small, low-to-middle-income countries such as North Macedonia, the prospect of young, educated peo-ple leaving their place of residence (i.e. emigrating) can have significant negative societal-level effects. Understanding the complexity of the brain-drain phenomenon and its antecedents is critical to developing multi-level (i.e. global, societal and individual) strategic solutions. A qualitative analysis of several focus-group interviews was used to understand young, educated residents’ reasons either for emigrating or for remaining in North Macedonia. Two overarching themes served to organise the participant-identified driv-ers for emigration and those opposed to it. Three sub-themes emerged describing the factors for emigra-tion: 1) a lack of professional opportunities, 2) institutional systems, and 3) cultural tightness. Likewise, three sub-themes emerged describing the factors for staying: 1) community, 2) culture and 3) social re-sponsibility. Insights serve to contextualise some of the experiences of young, educated people in small, low-to-middle-income, countries which impact on their emigration decisions.

Thinking of the earth as feminine derives from the oldest ideas as to the four rudimentary elements. Bipolarity, which is present in the take on the earth as an archetypical element, one giving life and finally absorbing it back, has not lost its relevance to this day. It is therefore myths, followed by philosophical considerations valuing the distinction between divine and human qualities, which have always been in conflict and cooperation, and these have marked the path Nikolai Berdyaev, the Russian religious thinker, takes. The problem of the nature of man’s gender is the fundamental issue of his philosophical anthropology. The stance represented by the author of The Meaning of the Creative Act is based on the conviction that the structure of the world constitutes two opposing elements, two opposing forces: good and evil, with good being linked to the male and evil to the female. The male to him is anthropological and personal, the female – cosmic and collective. One of Berdyaev’s most important beliefs is that the earth should be treated in a mystical sense as a principle female in matter and body. The driving force behind the world is the clash of both principles, the contact and interaction between the solar male and the terrestrial female. Through the prism of the cosmic battle of the genders, Berdyaev explains Freud’s concept of the Oedipus complex, giving it a mystical- ‑symbolic dimension.