Abstract
This study, based on 273 face-to-face interviews with students, scholars, and former residents of China in the United States in 1993, uses both qualitative and quantitative methods to explain people's views about returning to China. Although less than 9 percent of interviewees had concrete plans to return, over 32 percent were positively disposed to returning in the future. Key background variables that affect that decision are people’s age, sex, social background in China, and their views about returning when they first left China. Concern about children’s future was not significant, but having a wife abroad greatly increased the desire to stay abroad. Why people chose not to return varied significantly between people with children and those who didn't. Even four years after the Tiananmen crackdown, concerns about political instability, lack of political freedom, and a lack of trust that the government would let people who returned leave again were significant reasons for not returning. But economic factors—better U.S. housing and incomes—as well as professional concerns about lack of job or career mobility in China and a poor work environment there were equally important. Given the weight attributed to economic factors and political stability, if China weathers Deng Xiaoping’s succession and the economy continues to grow, significant numbers of Chinese may return.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
CHANG, SHIRLEY 1992 Causes of brain drain and solutions: The Taiwan experience.Studies in Comparative International Development 27, 1 (Spring 1992): 27–43.
CHANG, PARRIS AND ZIDUAN DENG 1992 The Chinese brain drain and policy options.Studies in Comparative International Development 17, 1 (Spring 1992): 44–60.
CHEN, CHANGGUI AND DAVID ZWEIG 1993 The impact of the open policy on higher education in China. Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Los Angeles, CA, March 1993.
EL-SAATI, SAMIA 1979 Egyptian brain drain: Its size, dynamics, and dimensions. In M. Wahba,Brain drain: Proceedings from the second Euro-Arab social research group conference. Cairo: Ari Shams University Press.
GLASER, WILLIAM 1978The brain drain: Emigration and return. New York: Pergamon Press.
GU, WEIQUN 1990 Chinese students and scholar in American universities and their political attitudes. Unpublished manuscript.
HAYHOE, RUTH AND JURGEN HENZE 1984 Chinese western scholarly exchange and the danger of dependency.Comparative Education 20, 2.
HUANG, W.C. 1988 An empirical analysis of foreign student brain drain to the United States.Economics of Education Review 7, 2: 231–243.
KAO, C.H.C. 1971Brain drain: A case study of China. Taipei: Mei Ya Publications.
KING, R. 1988 Taiwan launches new program.The Chronicle of Higher Education 26 October: p. 27.
LAMPTON, DAVID M. 1986A relationship restored: Trends in U.S.-China educational exchanges, 1978–1984. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
ORLEANS LEO A. 1988Chinese students in America: Policies, issues, and numbers. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
— 1989 The effects of China's ‘business fever’ on higher education at home and on Chinese students in the United States.China Exchange News 17, 1 (March): 11–13.
OTIEZA, E. 1968 A differential push-pull approach. In W. Adams, ed.,The brain drain. New York: Macmillan Company.
RAO, LAKSHMANA 1978Brain drain and foreign students: A study of the attitudes and intentions of foreign students in Australia, the USA, Canada, and France. Queensland, Australia: The University of Queensland Press.
REN, DONGLAI 1993 The popular images of the United States in China today. Paper presented at the China Forum, University of California, Berkeley, April 1.
RUTH, HEATHER LOW 1970 Taiwan. In the Committee on the International Migration of Talent.The international migration of high level manpower: Its impact on the development process. New York: Praeger Publishers.
SANCHEZ-ARNAU, J., AND E. CALVO 1987 International mobility and recognition of studies, diplomas and degrees.Higher Education in Europe xii, 3: 62–68.
SONG, HA-JOONG 1991 Who stays? Who returns? The choices of Korean scientists and engineers. Doctorate dissertation. Cambridge, MA: The Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
ZHANG, XIAOPING 1992 Residential preferences: A brain drain study on Chinese students in the United States. Doctorate Dissertation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Graduate School of Education.
ZHAO, XINSHU AND YU XIE 1992 Western influence on (People's Republic of China) Chinese students in the United States.Comparative Education Review 36 4 (November).
ZWEIG, DAVID AND CHANGGUI CHEN 1995China's brain drain to the United States: The views of Chinese students and scholars in the 1990s. Berkeley: Institute for East Asian Studies.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
David Zweig is Associate Professor, Division of Social Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is the author ofFreeing China’s Farmers: Rural Restructuring in the Deng Era (forthcoming),Agrarian Radicalism in China, 1968–1981 (1989), co-author ofChina’s Brain Drain to the United States: The Views of Students and Scholars in the 1990s (1995), and co-editor ofChina’s Search for Democracy: The Student and Mass Movement of 1989 (1992) andNew Perspectives on China’s Cultural Revolution (1991). He writes about China’s rural political economy, transnational relations, and domestic politics. He is currently completing a book on the impact of China’s open policy and transnational relations on urban development, rural industry, universities, and recipients of foreign aid.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zweig, D. To return or not to return? Politics vs. economics in China’s brain drain. St Comp Int Dev 32, 92–125 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02696307
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02696307