From Domicile to University to Work: The Sequential Migration of Young Educated People in the Context of the “Battle for Talent” in China

As the core driving force of technological innovation and economic development, talent is considered a scarce resource that cities and nations compete for. Facing the pressure of transitioning to high-quality development, many Chinese cities have launched various policies to retain and attract talent since 2017. Talents are comparatively more mobile flowing between regions. Educated talents, who have attended higher education, first move from domicile to university, and then move from university to work after graduation; it is a dynamic process and should be analyzed as a continuum. However, most of the existing studies analyze these two stages separately, namely, student migration and university graduate migration. This study, using the Graduate Employment Quality Report released by 12 universities in Shanghai and questionnaires collected in Shanghai, explored the spatial patterns and driving factors of the two-stage migration of graduates employing a bivariate probit model. The results showed that graduates’ place of origin is relatively diverse and geographically determined by the quota-allocation system of China’s higher-education system, while upon graduation, the majority of them stayed in Shanghai and the surrounding provinces for employment. Path dependence is revealed between domicile-to-university migration and university-to-work migration, and both of them are significantly affected by graduates’ human capital, family background, as well as city-level attributes. Among talent policies, hukou-related policies play an important role in affecting graduates’ choice of place of employment. This study contributes to the understanding of the sequential migration of human capital in a specific institutional setting, thereby providing policy implications to optimize the allocation of talents between regions.