Date:

2026-06-30

DOI Number:

10.11821/dlyj020220344

Institution:

城市与环境科学学院

Title of Paper:

Research on trend and mechanism of highly educated population migrating down to urban hierarchy: Taking the candidates from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen for the primary and middle school teachers in Wuhan as an example

Journal:

地理研究

Key Words:

formal employment; highly educated population; inter;urban migration; migration down the urban hierarchy; theory of stickiness

Summary:

This study focuses on the trend and mechanism of highly educated population migrating down to urban hierarchy. Based on the recruitment data of Wuhan's primary and middle school teachers, we analyse the downward migration trend of candidates from first-tier cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen) to the second-tier city (Wuhan), and explain its mechanism by drawing on the theory of stickiness. The results of binary logistic regression indicate that moving down the urban hierarchy has become one of the significant migration trends of the highly educated population driven by formal employment. In our case, nearly a quarter of inter-provincial migration samples show a willingness to move down the urban hierarchy, characterized by a higher proportion of non-fresh graduates than fresh graduates. For first-tier cities, Beijing has the highest proportion of highly educated population migrating down the urban hierarchy, followed by Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Meanwhile, Beijing has the highest proportion of fresh graduates while Shenzhen has the highest proportion of non-fresh graduates in this downward migration. This downward trend is deeply influenced by the stickiness of place, the individual factors and the urban factors. The highly educated population is back to Wuhan (the capital city of Hubei) from first-tier cities. Additional factors including age, education background, and the city level of hukou place also have certain effects on the downward tendency. In particular, young people or graduates from "Double-First Class" universities are more likely to move down the urban hierarchy. Furthermore, unlike the return migration in the West, which is influenced by religion, race, family, and personal values, both the stickiness of the place of hukou based on regional affiliation and the stickiness of the place of study based on educational affiliation profoundly affect the choice of job-choosing migration of highly educated population in China, leading to the migration down the urban hierarchy. This study demonstrates the dynamic mechanism of the trend of highly educated talents moving down the urban hierarchy in depth, which provides both a theoretical and an empirical basis for policy-making for highly educated population migration. © 2023, Science Press. All rights reserved.

Co-author:

Qiu, Jiayi,Yu, Jiayi,Li, Yuxiao

First Author:

高喆

Indexed by:

Journal paper

Correspondence Author:

敖荣军

Document Code:

1722800647658672128

Discipline:

教育学

Document Type:

00001

Volume:

42

Issue:

01

Page Number:

123-136

ISSN:

1000-0585

Translation or Not:

No

Date of Publication:

2023-01-01