The post-study labour migration of non-UK-domiciled postgraduate students: Flows in reflexive modernity

Abstract

In the global competition for high-skill workers and talents, the massive inflow of international and EEA students into the UK HE system has drawn great attention from researchers. However, little attention has been paid to the post-study migration of UK-education foreign students. By filling this gap, this thesis has made empirical, methodological, and conceptual contribution to the existing literature on international student migration. This thesis is made up of three standalone but interrelated empirical research papers (Chapter 3 to 5), and each paper contributes to a specific area of study. Based on the three-level agenda proposed by Li and Lowe, it aimed to: 1. Mapping the migration flows of international (non-EEA) graduates and EEA graduates; 2. Analysing what factors could shape the migration patterns of EEA and non-EEA graduates respectively; 3. Understanding the on-going interactions between individualstudents’ agency and the dynamic socioeconomic structures, and investing how students respond to the changes and uncertainties in the societies and labour markets. Paper 1 focused on the labour mobility of all non-EEA international students by analysing the HESA data through using cross-classified multilevel modelling. Two one-year extracts from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) dataset were analysed (2013/14, 2014/15) using crossclassified multilevel modelling in order to estimate influences on “stay-rate”: the likelihood of highly skilled graduates remaining in the UK for work after graduation. Variance at the domicile-level was estimated to be 1.67 times greater than variance at HEI-level indicating that home country is a better predictor of stay-rates than the HEI attended. In Paper 2, repeated cross-sectional data received from HESA were analysed, it focused on the post-study movement of EEA graduates and its changes in the long-term (2011/12-2016/17). Multilevel modelling results show that, at domicile-level factors, GDP per capita could be a stronger predictor than youth unemployment in analysing student postgraduation movement. At HEI-level factors, the prestige level of HEI could not effectively predict students’ stay-rate. At individual-level, students’ education background and gender identity were significant in predicting stay-rate. Results imply that the group effects at neither HEI-level nor domicile-level should be ignored. Finally, Paper 3 aimed: firstly, to investigate the structural factors that might influence the post-study migration patterns of Chinese students; secondly, to explore empirically about how Chinese international students respond to and interact with the wider social structures under the context of dynamic and fast-changing societies. Adopting a multiple-method design, Paper 3 used secondary data received from HESA and interview data collected from 13 Chinese postgraduate students who graduated from an UK university. Based on Giddens’s structuration theory, this study found that different configurations between student’s ‘goals’, ‘actions’, and ‘reflexivity’ would lead to different types of job-searching and migration strategies. Findings confirmed that the transition between study and work is more complex than what is described in the human capital and push-pull approaches. ii Overall, this thesis highlights the importance of multilevel modelling strategy and structuration theory in the research of international student migration. Factors that could shape student migration patterns were found to be attributed at domicile-level, HEI-level, and individual-level. The dynamic and on-going interaction between individual agent and the wider social structures was found to be the key in understanding the study-to-work transition of international students.

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