By Feng Chen, 03/14/2018.
To Stay or To Go:
A Comparative Study of Indian and Chinese International Students’ Migration Choices
Asian students nowadays constitute two largest groups of international students in the universities and colleges in the United States, particularly from China and India. Many of these students stay in the United States after graduation, whereas others returned to their home countries. This study investigates this group’s experience by asking which characteristics and factors influence Indian and Chinese students’ decision to stay or go? What calculations do they make over the choice to stay or go? These questions echo some major theories of “selectivity” in migration. On the one hand, Indian and Chinese students concern about the tightened H-1B working visa policies endorsed the by Trump Administration. On the other hand, both India and China have achieved rapid economic growth for decades, whereby they have been summoning their citizens overseas to return.
The purpose of this study is to compare social inequality and social mobility between the home societies and receiving societies through individual calculation and decision-making processes. More importantly, my study adds more humanistic characteristics and dimension to the discussion of migration, such as gender and sexual orientation, political inclination, socioeconomic status and skill categories, in contrast to economic sociologists whose investigation often does not seek to understand dimensions of these immigrants’ lives beyond human capital. Besides, drawing on the literature on “brain gain, brain strain” (Allen, 2006; Zweig, 2006; Baruch, Budhwar and Khatri, 2007), my study also aims to introduce “brain circulation” as an alternative migration pattern that has been barely discussed, indicating that host societies may not be the final destination of migration.
The research method that I apply to my study is in-depth interviews and participant observation. Based on my hypotheses and Weber’s ideal type (Weber, 1949), I plan to interview 30 informants, half in Beijing and half in New Delhi. I will make great effort to diversify my samplings drawing on the characteristics and factors that I discussed above.
I am competent to identify my informants because I have access to the population as an international student myself. I will use snowball sampling as my sampling strategy. My previous work experience as a journalist in Beijing establishes a wide social network to approach potential informants. I also already reached out to my “gatekeeper” in New Delhi, who returned to India after graduation from New York University and will introduce more peers to me.