Gong, Y, Sun, L orcid.org/0000-0002-0102-8801 and Xuan, L (2023) Social networks and drivers of highly skilled migration: The case of Shenzhen City in China. Population, Space and Place, 29 (6). e2683. ISSN 1544-8444
Abstract
In China, the number of highly skilled domestic migrants has been growing significantly. Many highly skilled personnel have migrated to megacities located in eastern China. Through semistructured interviews with 54 highly skilled migrants in the city of Shenzhen, we find that economic incentives, urban amenities, preferential policies and social networks act as drivers for their migration. Because the role of social networks has been overlooked in the existing literature, we focus on this particular driver of migration. The desire to be physically embedded in social networks has driven migrants to move to Shenzhen: they cite proximity to parents, partners and former schoolmates as motivating factors. Such embeddedness provides them with a sense of ‘social affiliation’. While previous research has highlighted the role of migrants' social capital, we suggest that highly skilled migrants do not necessarily rely on this resource. Instead, we focus on what we call ‘migration for social affiliation’, and offer a novel angle on the precise role of migrants' social networks.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Authors. Population, Space and Place published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | China; highly skilled migrants; migration drivers; social capital; social networks; social relationship |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Sociology and Social Policy (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 05 Jul 2023 16:25 |
Last Modified: | 11 Jan 2024 19:17 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/psp.2683 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:200689 |