Institutional Gap and Mobility–Immobility Transition: International Students’ Study-to-Work Experience in China

Abstract

Individuals’ transnational mobility trajectories are shaped by personal life stages and intertwined with migration infrastructure. In the case of international student mobility, graduates may seek to ‘stay put’ in the host country for career mobility. However, this mobility–immobility transition is heavily mediated by regulatory institutions, especially in a relatively new migrant-receiving country like China. This article unpacks the process of study-to-work transitions in China. The preliminary findings from policy analysis and two case studies reveal that institutional gaps in China’s migration infrastructure can manifest in multiple forms, including intransparent information accessibility, administrative barriers, and institutional timeframe clashes. These gaps also have a temporal dimension and can shape graduates’ post-study mobility path as their transnational biographies develop. The human cost of individuals in navigating these gaps thus hinders their socio-economic mobility and entails questions regarding the implication of China’s ‘rise’ as an international student/migration destination.