Highly Educated Migrants and Their Life Satisfaction: Evidence in Urban China

Binbin Shu , The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Eric Fong, Chinese University of Hong Kong

This study examines how migration and destination types are correlated with the life satisfaction of highly education workers using Chinese Family Panel Survey over the period 2000-2006. Our results firstly show that the college-educated overall gain more life satisfaction from migration. By taking into account the destination characteristics, we find that they display a higher level of life satisfaction only if moving to an economically more developed province or a high human capital concentrated province. College-educated migrants living in less developed areas, however, can gain greater than average satisfaction from an increase in income. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

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 Presented in Session 7. Migration & Urbanization