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by Jonathan Chow
China has worked hard to overcome its brain drain problem, trying to improve the prestige of its educational institutions, uphold the promise of economic growth and prosperity, and provide a prosperous and comfortable environment for its educated elite.
But in spite of this, a good portion of educated Chinese still seek opportunities for a one-way ticket abroad. According to a Gallup survey conducted in November 2008, one in five college-educated Chinese wants to emigrate permanently to a foreign country.
The Gallup survey also found that "the top destination choice among those Chinese who say they would like to move, is the United States (28%), followed by South Korea (14%) and France (8%)."
It's not surprising that the U.S. would be first pick, but South Korea getting second place was interesting to us, especially considering how deeply South Korea was affected by the 2008 financial crisis. In the past year, the country faced a 30% drop in the value of its currency and in October 2008, a month before the survey was conducted, the New York Times wrote that South Koreans were "reliving the nightmare of the last financial crisis." Although the affordability of higher education in Korea may be a plus, the promise of long-term employment for a Chinese national is less certain.
The reasons for this outflow of human capital are wide and varied, but Gallup points out the two big ones: education and employment.
In terms of education, though a selection of China's universities like Beijing Univeristy and Tsinghua have gained global prestige, its overall higher education environment is still much less developed than in Western countries.
In terms of employment, according to Gallup: "so far, China's economic exuberance has not translated to widespread confidence in job markets. Brain drain will continue to be a concern as long as college-educated Chinese 1) fail to see job growth outpacing the influx of people to the cities and 2) compare their pay levels unfavorably to those of professionals in developed countries."
We see one more big reason for Chinese to go abroad: raising a family. Chinese who go abroad are free to have as many children as they want in an environment with higher standards of living. In developed countries they have access to better health care, less pollution, and can more easily place their kids on educational tracks toward the world's best universities.
The speed of China's rise has been unprecedented, but if it hopes to keep 20% of its best and brightest seeking to emigrate it's going to have to do more.
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One should also consider the increasing inflow of foreign-educated Chinese returning to China (Foreign-born Chinese included).
If this inflow is greater than the brain-drain, I would say this problem may not be as big as people make it out to be.
I think it not bad deal that "China's brain drain" has been well balanced by the "better educated" westerners of over 250,000 who love to live under commie rule, as long as possible, if not permanantly as they wish.
my guess for the second place of S.Korea is due to China's huge sex imbalance. Korean women are the most attractive kind abroad to Chinese young men thanks to the huge influence of Kpop. sounds ridiculous right? but it's not as ridiculous as that college grads think they have a better chance to find a job in S.Korea, given the worsen economic situation there.
The article doesn't really say where the surveys were held (unless I missed that). I'm curious if it's different from region to region. Do students in Shanghai see more opportunity locally than those elsewhere in China?
I have friends that live in Shanghai and have several years of school there. They seem to be interested in traveling to America for higher education, but none seem strongly interested in a career there.
"We see one more big reason for Chinese to go abroad: raising a family."
- You are assuming that Chinese college grads are all dying to raise a big(ger) family, as a God-granted entitlement (are you from Texas?).
I seriously doubt it, considering the low birth rate among white-collar workers in cities and the increasing social legitimacy of DINKers.
If you reread the article, a larger family size is only one positive aspect of raising a family abroad. I suspect that the other reasons this article mentions are more relevant. In the economic sense, a clean environment, health care, and good schools are all normal goods. That is, as incomes increase, people want more of them. People's incomes tend to rise as they become more educated. So it should be no surprise that, whether Chinese can have one child or six, as their education rises, they want a better environment for raising a family. If they think they can get it abroad, and raising a family is important to them, they will want to go abroad.
This was a survey of fresh college grads or people of all age groups holding a college degree?
The answer is probably irrelevant, because of the college expansions in recent years that increase the number of college grads per annum around 8 folds. So a very high percentage of all educated Chinese are recent grads, many of whom would never have been able to get into college without the enrollment expansion.
The inevitable consequences are : (1) the national average age of college-educated Chinese is pulled down, along with the surveyee's maturity level; (2) lower IQ of your average college grad.
Therefore, I predict that in the coming decades the world will witness an interesting spectacle called the Dumbing-down of Chinese Abroad. Heck, we are already seeing it in Australia and UK, where the dregs of Chinese education end up due to the more lax admission and entry standards compared to US.
Among the evidence of my analysis above is that 14% who wish to go to S. Korea: damn the economic and social and cultural reality; I wanna live in soap opera with a Rain soundtrack!
The choice of a K-pop-addled mind. See what I mean by lower maturity and IQ?