IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp17757.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Quest for Talents: Attraction and Retention of Highly-Skilled Overseas Chinese in the United States and Canada

Author

Listed:
  • Fang, Tony

    (Memorial University of Newfoundland)

  • Ge, Lilac

    (Chinese University of Hong Kong)

  • Hartley, John

    (Memorial University of Newfoundland)

  • Ming, Hui

    (Sichuan University)

Abstract

Using OLS, probit, and semi-nonparametric regression analysis on survey data, this article examines the factors associated with the successful economic integration of Chinese returnees, as indicated by their career and income satisfaction. Those motivated to return by talent policy are substantially more likely to be economically satisfied and satisfied with their career. The desire to find a marriage partner also positively correlates with satisfaction, while researchers are less likely to be satisfied than those in other professions. Moreover, concerns about spousal employment, trade relations and the rule of law correlate with a lower willingness to return among overseas Chinese.

Suggested Citation

  • Fang, Tony & Ge, Lilac & Hartley, John & Ming, Hui, 2025. "Quest for Talents: Attraction and Retention of Highly-Skilled Overseas Chinese in the United States and Canada," IZA Discussion Papers 17757, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17757
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp17757.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jesse M. Shapiro, 2006. "Smart Cities: Quality of Life, Productivity, and the Growth Effects of Human Capital," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(2), pages 324-335, May.
    2. Everett Lee, 1966. "A theory of migration," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 3(1), pages 47-57, March.
    3. Giulio Marini & Lili Yang, 2021. "Globally Bred Chinese Talents Returning Home: An Analysis of a Reverse Brain-Drain Flagship Policy," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 48(4), pages 541-552.
    4. Tanja Buch & Silke Hamann & Annekatrin Niebuhr & Anja Rossen, 2014. "What Makes Cities Attractive? The Determinants of Urban Labour Migration in Germany," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(9), pages 1960-1978, July.
    5. Gallant, A Ronald & Nychka, Douglas W, 1987. "Semi-nonparametric Maximum Likelihood Estimation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 363-390, March.
    6. YANG, Fan, 2015. "Surveying China’s Science and Technology Human Talents Programs," Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, Working Paper Series qt5qg340x3, Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California.
    7. Li, Feng & Miao, Yajun & Yang, Chenchen, 2015. "How do alumni faculty behave in research collaboration? An analysis of Chang Jiang Scholars in China," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 438-450.
    8. Zhang, Han & Patton, Donald & Kenney, Martin, 2013. "Building global-class universities: Assessing the impact of the 985 Project," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 765-775.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ye Seul Choi & Up Lim, 2015. "Effects of Regional Creative Milieu on Interregional Migration of the Highly Educated in Korea: Evidence from Hierarchical Cross-Classified Linear Modeling," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(12), pages 1-18, December.
    2. Songyue Lin & Kaixuan Zhang & Jin Liu & Wenjing Lyu, 2024. "Credential inflation and employment of university faculty in China," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-14, December.
    3. Samuel Taylor & Heather M. Stephens & Daniel Grossman, 2022. "The opioid crisis and economic distress: Consequences for population change," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(2), pages 541-577, March.
    4. Moritz Meister & Annekatrin Niebuhr & Jan Cornelius Peters & Johannes Stiller, 2023. "Local attributes and migration balance – evidence for different age and skill groups from a machine learning approach," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(4), pages 794-825, May.
    5. Hyun-kyung Lee & Hong-bae Kim, 2019. "Regional preferences for the living environment and mobility of researchers and general workers: the case of Korea," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 62(1), pages 169-186, February.
    6. Sihong Xiong & Ya Wu & Shihai Wu & Fang Chen & Jianzhong Yan, 2020. "Determinants of migration decision-making for rural households: a case study in Chongqing, China," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 104(2), pages 1623-1639, November.
    7. Zhihui Li & Chao Li & John Gibson & Xiangzheng Deng, 2024. "Two decades of inter-city migration in China: The role of economic, natural and social amenities," Working Papers in Economics 24/05, University of Waikato.
    8. Müller, Moritz & Cowan, Robin & Barnard, Helena, 2018. "On the value of foreign PhDs in the developing world: Training versus selection effects in the case of South Africa," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(5), pages 886-900.
    9. Yanjiao Song & Nina Zhu & Feng Luo, 2022. "City Size and Permanent Settlement Intention: Evidence from Rural-Urban Migrants in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(2), pages 1-18, January.
    10. Chenhui Hu & Haining Jiang, 2021. "Causal Nexus between Sci-Tech Talent and Economic Growth in the Pan-Yangtze River Delta of China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-18, June.
    11. Yang, Zhenbing & Chen, Zhuo & Shao, Shuai & Yang, Lili, 2022. "Can housing price regulation improve R&D performance in universities? Evidence from China," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 82(PA).
    12. Chen, Zhuo & Yang, Zhenbing & Yang, Lili, 2020. "How to optimize the allocation of research resources? An empirical study based on output and substitution elasticities of universities in Chinese provincial level," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    13. Wentian Shi & Debin Du & Wenlong Yang, 2019. "The Flow Network of Chinese Scientists and Its Driving Mechanisms Based on the Spatial Development Path of CAS and CAE Academicians," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-22, October.
    14. María Gutiérrez-Portilla & Adolfo Maza & María Hierro, 2018. "Foreigners versus natives in Spain: different migration patterns? Any changes in the aftermath of the crisis?," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 61(1), pages 139-159, July.
    15. Laila Touhami Morghem & Khawlah Ali Abdalla Spetan, 2020. "Determinants of International Migration: An Applied Study on Selected Arab Countries (1995-2017)," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 10(2), pages 6-19.
    16. Karina Acosta & Hengyu Gu, 2022. "Locked up? The development and internal migration nexus in Colombia," Documentos de Trabajo Sobre Economía Regional y Urbana 19931, Banco de la República, Economía Regional.
    17. Yanting Tang & Jinlong Gao & Wen Chen, 2022. "The Spatial-Temporal Evolution of Population in the Yangtze River Delta, China: An Urban Hierarchy Perspective," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-15, October.
    18. Dreher, Axel & Fuchs, Andreas & Langlotz, Sarah, 2019. "The effects of foreign aid on refugee flows," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 127-147.
    19. Yang Haodong & Liu Jialin & Wang Gaofeng, 2025. "Knowledge Innovation Effect of University Computing Power in China: Evidence from the top500 Supercomputers," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 66(1), pages 1-30, February.
    20. Čížek, Pavel, 2008. "General Trimmed Estimation: Robust Approach To Nonlinear And Limited Dependent Variable Models," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(6), pages 1500-1529, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    career satisfaction; attraction; retention; overseas Chinese; talent management; talent policy; income satisfaction;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J28 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Safety; Job Satisfaction; Related Public Policy
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17757. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.