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Intercity migration behavior of Chinese graduates: from home region to work destination

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Abstract

This paper describes an investigation that used data from a census of Chinese graduates to understand the decisions made by graduates migrating from their home region to their first jobs after graduation. Employing a two-stage estimation method, we found that the economic conditions and social amenities are crucial determinants in attracting non-native graduates, and the improvement of innovation level can also help attract more graduates. In addition, low demand for graduates, low innovation level, and poor transportation conditions of cities are the main causes of out-migration of native graduates.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the MOE (Ministry of Education in China) Project of Humanities and Social Sciences (Project No. 16YJCZH088) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Numbers 71804184).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center of Applied Statistics, School of Statistics, Renmin University of China, Beijing, 100872, China

    Yi-Fan Sun

  2. School of Education, Renmin University of China, Beijing, 100872, China

    Kun-Feng Pan

  3. Graduate School of Education, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Zhang-Li He

Authors
  1. Yi-Fan Sun
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  2. Kun-Feng Pan
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  3. Zhang-Li He
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Correspondence to Kun-Feng Pan.

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Sun, YF., Pan, KF. & He, ZL. Intercity migration behavior of Chinese graduates: from home region to work destination. Ann Reg Sci 64, 111–132 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00168-019-00958-3

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