Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

While it is well-known that the number of Chinese students studying abroad has increased dramatically since 1990s, with more than half a million Chinese students in 2016 according to the Ministry of Education in China, the factors that influence families’ predisposition to send their children study abroad and their specific plans are less well-understood. Most prior studies focus on the intent to study abroad of high school students or undergraduates using cross-sectional data in a static fashion. Few studies investigate the intension to study using multiple cohorts of children.

Our study applies an integrated model of family choice to examine the familial factors associated with the intent to send their children (0-15 years old) to study abroad and their specific study plan for level of degrees they’d like their children to pursue abroad. Following the capital categories of Bourdieu (1986), we explore the impact of the economic capital, cultural capital and social capital, on families' intent to send their children to study abroad. Analysis of two waves of surveys from the Chinese Family Panel Studies(CFPS), which is currently the largest and most comprehensive social panel survey in China, demonstrates a complex interplay between children characteristics and three types of capital, regional features, economic development and study-abroad policies in the decision-making process.

We employ hierarchical linear models, path analysis and multinomial logit models to identify the significant factors, pathways and mechanism affecting the decisions of study abroad using pooled cross-sectional data. Moreover, we utilize first-difference estimation to further examine the effect of the changes in the accumulation of these three capitals on the intent of Chinese family to study abroad using panel data. Since the intent and plan of study abroad of children with various age groups are available in our data, we are able to predict the future scale of international students from China. Last but not least, we also conduct simulation studies to see how exogenous shocks, such as exchange rate fluctuation, and/or housing bubble burst would affect these flows.

While this paper focuses primarily on demand-side factors affecting the intent to study abroad and a full analysis of supply side factors is beyond the scope of this paper, we will briefly touch upon the potential effects of more stringent visa or immigration policies by receiving countries on number of Chinese students studying abroad.