Abstract
Despite the significant implications of the foreign doctorates’ stay or return decision on a personal level, as well as for the home and host countries, there is very little research that provides a comprehensive understanding of the factors that predict international doctorates’ decision to stay in the US and how those factors differ by country of origin or field of study. In addition, the patterns of stay (versus return) and the factors influencing those decisions may have changed over time, partly due to the changes in the immigration policies of the US and in economic development or national policy of home countries. Therefore, this study examines the patterns of international doctorates’ stay versus return decision from a historical perspective across the period of the 1980, 1990, and 2000s. Using data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED), collected in the US, this study enables us to move beyond a static understanding of the relative stay rates by country to an examination of how country-specific changes, such as shifts in economic development or national policy (push/pull factors), may relate to shifts in the stay versus return decision with a particular emphasis on the field specific effects.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The 1980s cohort includes individuals who received their doctoral degrees from 1984 given that the available variables have changed significantly since 1984. The 2000s cohort data include individuals who received degrees by 2005 which is the most current data available for the analysis.
The original sample size for the 1990s is 31,979. To have more comparable sample sizes across the years, 70% of the data (N = 22,404) were randomly selected for further analysis.
The predicted probabilities are calculated in STATA 10.1 with the prob command.
References
Altbach, P. G. (1991). Impact and adjustment: Foreign students in comparative perspective. Higher Education, 21(3), 305–323.
Andrade, M. (2006). International students in english-speaking universities: Adjustment factors. Journal of Research in International Education, 5(2), 131–154.
Aslanbeigui, N., & Montecinos, V. (1998). Foreign students in US doctoral programs. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 12(3), 171–182.
Barnett, G. A., & Wu, R. Y. (1995). The international student exchange network: 1970 and 1989. Higher Education, 30(4), 353–368.
Baruch, Y., Budhwar, P. S., & Khatri, N. (2007). Brain drain: Inclination to stay abroad after studies. Journal of World Business, 42, 99–112.
Bertram, C., Wedekind, V., & Muthukrishna, N. (2007). Newly qualified South African teachers: Staying or leaving? Perspectives in Education, 25(2), 77–89.
Bowman, M., & Anderson, C. (1963). Concerning the role of education in development. In C. Geertz (Ed.), Old societies and new states (pp. 247–279). Glencoe, IL: Free Press of Glencoe.
Brzozowski, J. P. (2007). Brain waste, educational investments and growth in transitional countries, Cracow University of Economics. Available: http://ssrn.com/abstract=991785.
Burrelli, J. (2004). Emigration of US-born S & E doctorate recipients. National Science Foundation Info Brief, NSF 04–327. Washington DC: NSF.
Camarota & McArdle (2003, September). Where immigrants live: An examination of state residency of the foreign born by country of origin. Washington, DC: Center for Immigration Studies. Available: http://www.cis.org/articles/2003/back1203.html.
Congressional Budget Office (June 2007). Federal support for research and development. Congress of the United States.
Das Gupta, M., Nerad, M., & Cerny, J. (2003, Spring). International Ph.D.’s: Exploring the decision to stay or return. International Higher Education. Retrieved 23 Oct 2008 from http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/newsletter/News31/text008.htm.
Dedrick, J., & Kraemer, K. L. (1998). Asia’s computer challenge: Threat or opportunity for the United States? New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Dreher, A. & Poutvaara, P. (2005). Student flows and migration: An empirical analysis. CESifo working paper no. 1490, 1–24.
Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation (August, 2007b). Intellectual property, the immigration backlog, and a reverse brain-drain. Kansas City, KS.
Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation (January, 2007a). America’s New Immigrant Entrepreneurs. Kansas City, KS.
Finn, M. (1997). A stay rates of foreign doctorate recipients from US universities, 1995. Oak Ridge, TN: Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education.
Finn, M. (2007a). Stay rates of foreign doctorate recipients from US universities, 2005. Oak Ridge, TN: Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education.
Finn, M. G. (October, 2007b). Using NSF data on scientists and engineers to estimate stay rates of foreign doctorate recipients. Paper presented at the Workshop for Using Human Resource Data from Science Resources Statistics. National Science Foundation, VA.
Freeman, R. B. (2006). People flows in globalization. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(2), 145–170.
Freeman, G. P., & Hill, D. K. (2006). Disaggregating immigration policy: The politics of skilled labor recruitment in the US. Knowledge, Technology, & Policy, 19(3), 7–21.
Freeman, R., Stephan, P., & Trumpbour, J. (January, 2008). Career patterns of foreign born scientists and engineers trained and or working in the US (Workshop Report). Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/~sewp/Workshop.Report.November.2007.pdf
Gribble, C. (2008). Policy options for managing international student migration: The sending country’s perspective. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 30(1), 25–39.
Heikinheimo, P., & Shute, J. (1986). The adaptation of foreign students: Student views and institutional implications. Journal of College Student Personnel, 27(5), 399–406.
Hoffer, T. B., Grigorian, K. H., & Hedberg, E. C. (2008). Postdoc participation of science, engineering, and health doctorate recipients. Infobrief, NSF 08-307. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation, SBE-Division of Science Resources Statistics.
Hoffer, T. B., Welch, V., Jr., Webber, K., Williams, K., Lisek, B., Hess, M., et al. (2006). Doctorate recipients from United States Universities: Summary report 2005. Chicago: NORC.
Institute of International Education. (2007). Open doors 2007. New York: Author.
Institute of International Education. (2008). Open doors 2008. New York: Author.
Johnson, J. M., & Regets, M. C. (1998). International mobility of scientists and engineers to the United States-Brain drain or brain circulation? Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation.
Kim, D. & Rury, J. (2010). The Rise of the Commuter student: A statistical analysis of attending college while living at Home in the United States, 1960–1980. Teachers College Record.
Kim, D., Twombly, S. & Wolf-Wendel, L. (2009, April). International faculty: Perception and productivity. Paper presented at the annual conference of American Educational Research Association (AERA). San Diego, CA.
Klomegah, R. (2006). Social factors relating to alienation experienced by international students in the United States. College Student Journal, 40(20), 303–315.
Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training. (2007). Careers of Korean Ph.D.s with Degrees of Foreign Countries and the HRD Policy of the Highly Skilled in Korea, Jin, M., Lee S., Yoon, H., Kim, N., & Oh, H. Seoul, Korea.
Lee, J. J., & Rice, C. (2007). Welcome to America? International student perceptions of discrimination. Higher Education, 53, 381–409.
Li, C. (2005). Bridging minds across the Pacific: US–China educational exchanges, 1978–2003. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Mazzarol, T., & Soutar, G. N. (2002). Push-pull factors influencing international student destination choice. The International Journal of Educational Management, 16(2), 82–90.
National Science Foundation. (2006). Science and engineering indicators. Washington, DC.: NSF.
Olivas, M., & Li, C. S. (2006). Understanding stressors of international students in higher education: What college counselors and personnel need to know. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 33(3), 217–222.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2002, July). International mobility of the highly skilled (Policy Brief). Retrieved 14 Sept 2009 from http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/9/20/1950028.pdf.
Perna, L. W., & Titus, M. A. (2005). The relationship between parental involvement as social capital and college enrollment: An examination of racial/ethnic group differences. Journal of Higher Education, 76, 486–518.
Psacharopoulos, G. (2006). The value of investment in education: Theory, evidence, and policy. Journal of Education Finance, 32(2), 113–136.
Sahay, A. (2006). Brain drain or gain: Migration of knowledge workers from India to the United States. Dissertation Abstracts International, DAI-A 67/09.
Saxenian, A. (2002). Brain circulation: How high-skill immigration makes everyone better off. The Brookings Review, 20(1), 28–31.
Saxenian, A. (2005). From brain drain to brain circulation: Transnational communities and regional upgrading in India and China. Studies in Comparative International Development, 40(2), 35–61.
Selfa, L., & Grigorian, K. (October, 2006). The international survey of doctorate recipients and an analysis of ‘Brain Circulation.’ Paper presented at the National Science Foundation for the Workshop on Using Human Resource Data from Science Resources Statistics, National Science Foundation to Study the Science and Engineering Workforce. Arlington, VA.
Shen, Y., & Herr, E. (2004). Career placement concerns of international graduate students: A qualitative study. Journal of Career Development, 31(1), 15–29.
Stark, O., Helmenstein, C., & Prskawetz, A. (1997). A brain gain with a brain drain. Economics Letters, 55(2), 227–234.
Stephan, P.E. & Levin, S.G. (April, 2003). Foreign scholars in US science: Contributions and costs. Cornell Higher Education Research Institute, May 20-21, 2003 Draft.
Tansel, & Güngör, (2003). Brain drain” from Turkey: Survey evidence of student non-return. Career Development International, 8(2), 52–69.
Welch, A. R., & Zhen, Z. (2008). Higher education and global talent flows: Brain drain, overseas Chinese intellectuals, and diasporic knowledge networks. Higher Education Policy, 21(4), 519–537.
Zhai, L. (2002). Studying international students: Adjustment issues and social support. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED474481).
Zweig, D., & Changgui, C. (1995). China’s brain drain to the United States. Berkeley: University of California’s Institute of East Asian Studies.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kim, D., Bankart, C.A.S. & Isdell, L. International doctorates: trends analysis on their decision to stay in US. High Educ 62, 141–161 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-010-9371-1
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-010-9371-1