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Migration behavior of students and graduates under prevailing regional dualism: the case of South Korea

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Abstract

Improvement in human capital stock and regional economic development are associated with migration for higher education as well as with the subsequent migration of graduates. Accumulation of human capital attributable to universities’ contribution is possible not only when students are attracted to the region for their higher education, but also when graduates stay to work in the university region. Previous research makes a strong argument supporting the notion that the better the quality of the university from which a student graduates, the lower the probability that she/he will migrate after graduation. However, the manner in which the quality of the university affects student mobility might differ, given the vast regional disparities. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting the migration behavior of students and graduates under the prevailing regional dualism in Korea, using the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study. Two-stage recursive models are applied to investigate how migration choice behaviors of students and graduates in the Seoul Metropolitan Area, which has a greater concentration of political, cultural, and financial functions, differ from those in the rest of the country. The empirical results demonstrate that the probability that the student will migrate for higher education is positively affected by the quality of the university. However, the results also show that the better the quality of the university, the higher the probability that graduates will migrate after completing higher education. Such a phenomenon is much more remarkable in the lesser developed areas.

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Notes

  1. To date, there is no concrete agreement on how to measure universities’ contributions to the stock of human capital and regional economic development. Despite the absence of a common methodology for calculating and the definition of economic impact, however, it is generally accepted that the economic impact of a university can be defined by the difference between the current economic level of a region owing to the presence of the university and the level that would have been if it did not exist (Beck et al. 1995).

  2. A higher education institution will exert a positive regional impact when graduates stay to work in the place they were educated in. Bluestone (1993) analyzed data from the University of Massachusetts (Boston) and showed that 89% of undergraduates and 82% of graduates remained in the same region after completing their education.

  3. The first set of criteria for “Faculty research” consist of number of faculty publications, citations of faculty papers, amount of research funding, intellectual property registration, and technology transfer. The second set of criteria for “Education and financial conditions” include faculty–student ratio, book purchases, open courseware, and other student indicators. The third, “Reputation and alumni networks” include employment rate of graduates, alumni donations, and other social indicators. Lastly, the fourth set of criteria for “Internationalization” includes diversity of the foreign student population, and percentages of foreign faculty, foreign students, exchange students, and courses in English (refer to http://univ.joongang.co.kr/).

  4. For a discussion on the choice of variables on university quality, refer to Ciriaci (2013, p. 9).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urban Planning and Real Estate College of Social Science, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea

    Kang-Rae Ma & O-Kyu Kwon

  2. College of Humanities and Social Science, Seonam University, Cheonan, Korea

    Eun-Taek Kang

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  1. Kang-Rae Ma
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  2. Eun-Taek Kang
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  3. O-Kyu Kwon
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Correspondence to Eun-Taek Kang.

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Ma, KR., Kang, ET. & Kwon, OK. Migration behavior of students and graduates under prevailing regional dualism: the case of South Korea. Ann Reg Sci 58, 209–233 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00168-016-0799-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00168-016-0799-9

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