Tag: Hong Kong

Different paths, same destination? Mobility trajectories of Mainland PhD students during the COVID-19 pandemic at a Hong Kong University

Wang, L., & Yang, R. (2023). Different paths, same destination? Mobility trajectories of Mainland PhD students during the COVID-19 pandemic at a Hong Kong University. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 1-13. DOI: 10.1080/00131857.2023.2284104

Existing studies on student mobility are plentiful. They have predominantly focused on the push and pull factors that drive linear student mobilities from less developed regions to regions with more advanced systems of education; the identity formation of students during their transnational or transborder journeys; and the policy rationales, developments, and implications of students’ transnational mobilities (Gümüş et al., 2020; Hong, 2022; Tran, 2016; Xu, 2018; Wen & Hu, 2019). However, few studies have investigated mobility trajectories characterized by different durations of stay and directions of movement that individual students navigate at different points in their academic lives. Additionally, the impact of the outbreak of COVID-19—the global pandemic that significantly decreased global movement but made virtual mobilities (e.g., online learning) prevalent—on students’ academic mobilities remains unexplored.

Another important strand of research has revealed that Hong Kong (HK), the regional education hub characterized by a hybrid culture and sociopolitical tensions between HK local and Mainland China (MC) students, has attracted students from MC for numerous decades (e.g., Li & Bray, 2007, Xu, 2018). However, few studies have examined the academic experiences of students who relocated to HK in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, how these students perceive their academic experience in HK, and whether their mobility plans have changed since coming to HK. Given the research gaps identified, the study has two aims: to investigate diverse academic mobility trajectories among MC students who have relocated to HK for doctoral studies and to explore the factors that shape mobility trajectories. 

This study conceptualizes student mobility through the lens of power by combining and adapting the work of Hong (2022) and Holyk (2011). Hong (2022) synthesizes the work of He and Wilkins (2019), Tran and Vu (2018), and Bae and Lee (2020) on the soft power of national cultural or education programs and considers three types of soft power produced by student mobility: social capital soft power, cultural soft power, and participatory capital soft power. Taking into consideration the fact that financial support and HK’s geopolitical proximity to MC are significant factors to attract MC students (Li & Bray, 2007), this study also includes economic hard power—geographical advantages and financial support as emphasized by Holyk (2011, p. 229) in our framework. Based on this framework, we argue that multiple student mobility trajectories exist in universities due to the combined impact of soft power and hard power. Universities serve as convergence points for diverse ideas, values, and cultures. Students, whose identities embody dynamic hybridity, find themselves embedded in interconnected social networks influenced by various forms of power that are distributed unevenly in terms of size and influence. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced a distinctive spatial-temporal context, leading students to respond differently to various manifestations of power. As a result, distinct mobility trajectories have surfaced.

Our research data include semi-structured interviews with 20 full-time PhD students from a prestigious university (University A) supplemented by university documents on student mobility projects, COVID-19 policies, and university development plans. Ethical clearance was obtained before research. All the interviewees were recruited through a purposeful sampling strategy and had previously studied at top Western universities and navigated multiple mobility trajectories. Their cross-cultural experiences offered valuable insights into the intricate and multifaceted processes that influence the formation of various mobility patterns and their underlying factors. Data were analyzed deductively and inductively following the method of Saldaña (2016).

Our findings reveal two forms of cross-border mobilities: 1) degree mobilities from Western societies to HK and 2) international academic mobilities that involved HK as a place of both departure and return. What motivated interviewees to choose HK as a study destination was the combined effect of economic hard power (the availability of generous scholarships and HK’s geopolitical proximity to MC), one aspect of social capital power (having desirable doctoral supervisors), and the global pandemic that restricted travel restrictions. Aspects of cultural soft power closely connected to a university’s core missions of research and teaching seemed to exert minimal influence on the decisions of these students to choose HK. The power imbalance between University A and prominent Western universities was evident because of University A’s lack of international exchange programs and visiting opportunities with top-tier Western universities.

The intracity academic mobilities of students in this study were characterized by disengaged virtual spaces and confined physical spaces, both contributing to decreased academic mobilities. Although online learning helped overcome spatial barriers, it posed challenges related to student engagement and teaching quality, as illustrated by previous studies (Mok et al., 2021). Moreover, the subpar quality of teaching, combined with a highly competitive research environment where students struggled to establish meaningful connections with peers and academics, left them disempowered to build the social capital necessary for fostering a supportive learning environment. Consequently, their intracity academic mobility trajectories were limited.

The interviewees’ reflections on HK as both a safe and unsafe place, a finding that emerged from the interview data, were based on their intra- and intercity physical mobility experiences, which were influenced by various factors including the COVID-19 policies of HK and MC, Mandarin discrimination, and HK’s political movements. As a result, very few interviewees were able to cultivate a sense of belonging in HK. Their identities as bystanders in HK gave support to the statement that ‘ways of being’ and ‘ways of belonging’ are different (Levitt & Schiller, 2004, p. 1008) and academic involvement and social engagement are important dimensions of belonging (Ahn & Davis, 2020).

Limitations of the study include the small sample size and the lack of representativeness of our participants. Despite these limitations, various types of power, each with different levels of influence, shape the directions and durations of student mobilities, offering a novel perspective into student mobility trajectories. Our findings also emphasize the significance of students’ sociocultural development through meaningful interactions and the importance of a campus that fosters intellectual exchanges and respectful dialogue in a space of equality.

Author’s bio

Ling Wang is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong. Her research focuses on power and leadership in higher education, academic career, and doctoral education.

Rui Yang is a Professor and Dean in the Faculty of Education at The University of Hong Kong. With three and a half decades in China, Australia and Hong Kong, he has established his reputation among scholars in English and Chinese languages in the fields of comparative and international education and Chinese higher education. His research interests include education policy sociology, comparative and cross-cultural studies in education, international higher education, educational development in Chinese societies, and international politics in educational research.

References

Ahn, M. Y., & Davis, H. H. (2020). Four domains of students’ sense of belonging to university. Studies in Higher Education, 45(3), 622–634. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2018.1564902

Bae, Y., & Lee, Y. W. (2020). Socialized soft power: Recasting analytical path and public diplomacy. Journal of International Relations and Development, 23(4), 871–898. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41268-019-00169-5

Gümüş, S., Gök, E., & Esen, M. (2020). A Review of Research on International Student Mobility: Science Mapping the Existing Knowledge Base. Journal of Studies in International Education, 24(5), 495–517. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315319893651

He, L., & Wilkins, S. (2019). The Return of China’s Soft Power in South East Asia: An Analysis of the International Branch Campuses Established by Three Chinese Universities. Higher Education Policy, 32(3), 321–337. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41307-018-0084-x

Hong, M. (2022). Evaluating the soft power of outbound student mobility: An analysis of Australia’s New Colombo Plan. Higher Education Research & Development, 41(3), 743–758.

Holyk, G. G. (2011). Paper Tiger? Chinese Soft Power in East Asia. Political Science Quarterly, 126(2), 223–254. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538-165X.2011.tb00700.x

Tran, L. T. (2016). Mobility as ‘becoming’: A Bourdieuian analysis of the factors shaping international student mobility. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 37(8), 1268–1289. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2015.1044070

Levitt, P., & Schiller, N. G. (2004). Conceptualizing Simultaneity: A Transnational Social Field Perspective on Society1. International Migration Review, 38(3), 1002–1039. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-7379.2004.tb00227.x

Li, M., & Bray, M. (2007). Cross-Border Flows of Students for Higher Education: Push-Pull Factors and Motivations of Mainland Chinese Students in Hong Kong and Macau. Higher Education, 53(6), 791–818.

Mok, K. H., Xiong, W., & Bin Aedy Rahman, H. N. (2021). COVID-19 pandemic’s disruption on university teaching and learning and competence cultivation: Student evaluation of online learning experiences in Hong Kong. International Journal of Chinese Education, 10(1), 22125868211007011. https://doi.org/10.1177/22125868211007011

Saldaña, J. (2016). The coding manual for qualitative researcher (3rd ed.). Sage.

Tran, L. T., & Vu, T. T. P. (2018). Beyond the ‘normal’ to the ‘new possibles’: Australian students’ experiences in Asia and their roles in making connections with the region via the New Colombo Plan. Higher Education Quarterly, 72(3), 194–207. https://doi.org/10.1111/hequ.12166

Xu, C. L. (2018). Transborder habitus in a within-country mobility context: A Bourdieusian analysis of mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong. The Sociological Review, 66(6), 1128–1144. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038026117732669

Managing Editor: Tong Meng

Study-to-Work Transitions of Students-Turned-Migrants: Ongoing Struggles of Mainland Chinese Graduates in Hong Kong

Chan, A. K., & Chen, X. (2023). Study-to-work transitions of students-turned-migrants: ongoing struggles of mainland Chinese graduates in Hong Kong. Higher Education, 1-16.

About the study:

International students’ settlement experiences have emerged as a new focus in migration studies. Studies have shown that students-turned-migrants experience difficulties transitioning and getting jobs after graduating despite their domestic university qualifications. Researchers have identified structural and institutional factors, such as stringent immigration policies (Maury, 2020; Moskal, 2017) and ‘homophilous employment systems’ (Liu-Farrer & Shire, 2021, p.13), and the various human capital characteristics of student migrants (Wiers-Jenssen & Støren, 2020; Yang, 2020) as being significant barriers. Recent studies have further delineated the importance and unevenness of socio-cultural capital and institutional habitus in shaping international students’ post-study aspirations and transition experiences (Lee, 2021; Lee & Waters, 2022).

Few studies have examined the links between students-turned-migrants’ transition experiences and their adaptation challenges during their university years, especially their difficulties in acquiring new language skills, developing cultural understanding and making local social connections, and whether and how students-turned-migrants overcame their earlier socio-cultural adaptation difficulties after entering their host society’s labour market.

Moreover, the focus on current studies is dominated by the experiences of international students in English-speaking or Western European countries. While these countries remain popular destinations for international students, Asia is increasingly hosting these mobile talents (Collins et al., 2017). Intra-Asian educational mobility has been increasing steadily, especially among students in China, which is the most significant source country (Yang, 2020), as parents prefer their children to study in places such as Singapore (Chacko, 2021; Yang, 2014) or Hong Kong (Peng, 2019), which have similar socio-cultural contexts and geographic locations. However, whereas some scholars have argued that shorter socio-cultural distances between source and host societies help facilitate socio-cultural adjustment (Chan et al., 2016), others have identified unique barriers for Chinese international students in Asia. Despite the presence of the ethnic Chinese majority, migrant Chinese students must grapple with cultural precarity (Chacko, 2021), intra-ethnic othering (Yang, 2014) and even anti-mainlandisation sentiments (Xu, 2015).

Drawing on in-depth interviews with 30 mainland Chinese (MLC) graduates in Hong Kong, we add nuance to intra-Asian ISM studies by scrutinising their post-university settlement experiences. We ask the following questions: How do MLC students/graduates navigate and acquire social, cultural and linguistic capital (i.e., Cantonese proficiency, cultural understanding, intercultural competence and social networks)? How do MLC students-turned-migrants’ earlier socio-cultural adaptation at university influence their post-study transition and settlement experiences?

Findings and implications:

In our study, MLC students-turned-migrants experience challenges in their university years. Adaptation difficulties in their university years, including limited Cantonese proficiency, meagre cultural understanding of the host society and weak connections with locals, continue to affect their subsequent employment and social integration. Our findings underscore the importance of student migrants’ ongoing socio-cultural adaptation difficulties. These challenges were not always resolved but intensified during the post-study transition, making socio-cultural integration and inter- and intra-ethnic cohesion a thorny problem for the social agenda.

This study also deepens the discussion on intra-Asian educational mobility, especially the social interactions between intra-ethnic groups. Other than the challenges of cultural precarity, intra-ethnic othering and anti-mainlandisation sentiments (Chacko, 2021; Yang, 2014; Xu, 2015), our study revealed other barriers, including language as a demarcation device, everyday workplace microaggressions and self-segregation as an inevitable strategy in a context where sociocultural affinity was expected. The challenges and discrimination that MLC students/graduates encounter are intimately related to the broader public (discriminatory) discourses of ‘foreign talents’ (Yang, 2014, p. 236) or ‘mainland Chinese students’ (Xu, 2015, p. 28) and the complex socio-economic, political and migration environments of the host societies (Liu-Farrer & Shire, 2021). As the study-to-work transition trend grows, we argue that the specific migration contexts and workplace microaggressions experienced by skilled/students-turned-migrants should be examined adequately.

Our findings have implications for immigration policy, university student services and local companies. Many countries have developed policies to attract international students to become skilled migrants, but few have done much to help them integrate into their host societies (Scott et al., 2015; van Riemsdijk & Basford, 2022). The HKSAR government is no exception. While it has liberalised its immigration policies, it places the responsibility on individual student migrants to adapt to the socio-cultural norms of the local society. The HKSAR government should be more proactive in supporting MLC in learning the host language to better integrate with locals.

Concerning higher education, as more non-local or international students consider becoming skilled migrants after graduation, we believe universities should strengthen their related support and career services to enhance MLC students’ socio-cultural integration and future employability by helping them learn Cantonese and understand Hong Kong’s social norms, cultural practices, workplace culture and general expectations.

Finally, employers and co-workers are vital in integrating students-turned-migrants into the workplace (van Riemsdijk & Basford, 2022). Non-local migrants’ difficulties and unwillingness to learn and speak the host language in addition to intermingling and forming ties with local colleagues are sometimes related to the responses they received at university and in the workplace. While the government must counter various forms of discrimination using policies and public education, local companies should also cultivate staff with multicultural competency, organise training against microaggressions and actively promote intercultural learning and interactions in their workplace.

References

Chan, K., Huxley, P. J., Chiu, M. Y.-L., Evans, S., & Ma, Y. (2016). Social inclusion and health conditions among Chinese immigrants in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom: an exploratory study. Social Indicators Research, 126, 657–672.

Chacko, E. (2021). Emerging precarity among international students in Singapore: experiences, understandings and responses. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 47(20), 4741–4757.

Collins, F. L., Ho, K. C., Ishikawa, M., & Ma, A. H. S. (2017). International student mobility and after study lives: the portability and prospects of overseas education in Asia. Population, Space and Place, 23, e2029.

Liu-Farrer, G., & Shire, K. (2021). Who are the fittest? The question of skills in national employment systems in an age of global labour mobility. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 47(10), 2305–2322.

Lee, J. (2021). A future of endless possibilities? Institutional habitus and international students’ poststudy aspirations and transitions. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 42(3), 404–418.

Lee, J., & Waters, J. (2022). International education ‘here’ and ‘there’: geographies, materialities and differentiated mobilities within UK degrees. Social & Cultural Geography, 1–8.

Maury, O. (2020). Between a promise and a salary: student-migrant-workers’ experiences of precarious labour markets. Work, Employment and Society, 34(5), 809-825.

Moskal, M. (2017). International students’ pathways between open and closed borders: towards a multi-scalar approach to educational mobility and labour market outcomes. International Migration, 55(3), 126-138.

Scott, C., Safdar, S., Trilokekar, R. D., & El Masri, A. (2015). International students as ‘ideal immigrants’ in Canada: a disconnect between policy makers’ assumptions and the lived experiences of international students. Comparative and International Education, 43(3).

van Riemsdijk, M., & Basford, S. (2022). Integration of highly skilled migrants in the workplace: a multilevel framework. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 22, 633–654.

Wiers-Jenssen, J., & Støren, L. A. (2020). International student mobility and the transition from higher education to work in Norway. Higher Education, 82, 1119–1143.

Xu, L. (2015). When the Hong Kong dream meets the anti-mainlandisation discourse: Mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong. Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, 44(3), 15–47.

Yang, P. (2020). China in the global field of international student mobility: an analysis of economic, human and symbolic capitals. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 52(2), 308–326.

Yang, P. (2014). A phenomenology of being ‘very China: an ethnographic report on the self-formation experiences of mainland Chinese undergraduate ‘foreign talent’ in Singapore. Asian Journal of Social Sciences, 42(3/4), 233–261.

Author’s bio

Anita K.W. Chan (First author)

Anita K.W. Chan (PhD) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Policy Studies at The Education University of Hong Kong. As an expert in gender and education, she has examined various gender issues in Hong Kong’s education system, including the gendered identities of school girls, university males, primary school teachers, principals, and gender differences in choosing STEM subjects among secondary school students. She is also passionate about family and migration studies and has researched parenting, motherhood, fatherhood, changing families and intimacies, cross-border students, and transnational families. She is a qualitative researcher specializing in in-depth interviews and narrative analysis. Email: akwchan@eduhk.hk

Xi Chen (Co-author and Corresponding author)

Xi Chen (PhD) is a Lecturer in the Academy of Chinese National Cohesion Research at Jinan University, Guangzhou, China. She graduated with a PhD from The Education University of Hong Kong, supervised by Anita K.W. Chan. As a former mainland China-Hong Kong student, she focuses on the student mobility research stemmed from her PhD study. She is also passionate about the topics related to international students studying in mainland China, as well as Hong Kong studies. She is a qualitative researcher specializing in in-depth interviews. Email: xichen614@163.com

Managing Editor: Tong Meng

Bourdieusian Boundary-Making, Social Networks, and Capital Conversion: Inequality among International Degree Holders in Hong Kong

Au, A. (2023). Bourdieusian Boundary-Making, Social Networks, and Capital Conversion: Inequality among International Degree Holders in Hong Kong. Cultural Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1177/17499755231157115

The following summary was prepared by Dr Anson Au’s student: Yuxiao Liu (刘宇骁)

Within the sociological perspective of education, capital and distinction, existing literature has fully discussed the various ways and mechanisms of education transforming from cultural capital to other forms of capital (Lareau and Weininger, 2003). 

However, this direct conversion of different types of capital is not always smooth. With the popularization of international education, non-elite middle-class families are also able to send their children to overseas countries for higher education. The number of international bachelor’s degree holders or above is gradually increasing, which leads to the increasingly saturated labor market and increasingly fierce competition in the job market. Graduates with an international degree are less likely than before to find a decent job that meets their income expectations, which means that the direct conversion of cultural capital from an overseas education degree into economic capital is more difficult than ever (Tholen and Brown, 2017). In this context, how can international degree-holders transfer their cultural capital to other types of capital? And how can they justify an international degree with declining economic returns?

Indeed, while much research has been dedicated to examining the direct benefits of an international higher education degree, less attention has been devoted to understanding the cultural schemas that graduates acquire through foreign higher education, especially among those with non-elite university degrees whose economic returns begin to falter. Addressing this lacuna, this article inquires into the meaning-making in international student migration and the perceived value of an international education degree when its ability to convert into economic capital is disrupted. 

The study focuses on the case of international degree holders in Hong Kong and draws upon Bourdieu’s theory of practice to interrogate the cultural schemas that valorize international degrees when their conversion pathways to economic capital are subjectively perceived to weaken. 

When the ability of international degrees as cultural capital to convert into economic capital is undermined, how do international degree graduates perceive the indirect or implicit benefits of their degrees(the perceived value) and why they still choose to pay more for an overseas university (meaning-making in education)?

Using semi-structured interviews with non-elite international degree graduates based in Hong Kong, this study examines how cultural schemas resist change and symbolic violence is enacted among graduates against other degree holders in the wake of diminishing economic returns. 

Traditionally, a Western legacy of cultural colonization in Hong Kong has allowed international degree holders to remain more competitive in some sectors, but this is fading over time. 

Holders of international degrees admit that the economic returns of an international degree are declining, but they are found to justify their purchase of an international degree by recasting it as a decision motivated by values, vision, and taste. On that score, they emphasize the uniqueness of the opportunity to study abroad and vindicate the cultural riches of an international degree by pitting themselves against local degree holders, who are viewed as inferior. 

The findings suggest that social networks play a significant role in embedding cultural schemas and their effects on relations within the field. When faced with diminishing economic returns, international degree holders hold fast to their schemas in view of fellow international graduates and reconceptualize their degrees as symbolic capital to cope with the loss by enacting symbolic violence against domestic degree holders.

These schemas entrench class boundaries because it makes manifest an interstitial homology, where international degree holders occupy different positions in different fields, namely, a dominant position in the cultural field but a dominated position in the economic field. Put simply, international degree holders are led by their schemas to ignore the structure of the economy as an explanation for why they or local degree holders struggle in the workforce, ignore the costs of an international degree, and ultimately ignore the fact that they are in the same economic boat as their local counterparts.

The conclusion is that the study highlights the importance of understanding the cultural schemas that graduates possess and use to respond to disruptions of capital conversion processes. The study also shows how social networks play a significant role in embedding cultural schemas and their effects on relations within the field. The findings have implications for understanding the dynamics of class boundaries and the role of cultural capital in shaping graduates’ responses to economic capital losses.

References

Lareau A and Weininger E (2003) Cultural capital in educational research: A critical assessment. Theory and Society 32(5): 567–606.

Tholen G and Brown P (2017) Higher education and the myths of graduate employability. In: Waller R, Ingram N and Ward M (eds) Higher Education and Social Inequalities. London: Routledge, 152–166.

Author’s Bio

Dr Anson Au,
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Dr Anson AU is Assistant Professor of Economic Sociology in the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He presently serves as an Executive Council Member on the Board of the Hong Kong Sociological Association and on the Editorial Board of Sociology, ​the flagship journal of the British Sociological Association. Applying mixed methods, his research examines digitalization, networks, economic sociology, and professions and organizations, with a regional focus on East Asia. Email: anson-ch.au@polyu.edu.hk

Managing Editor: Lisa (Zhiyun Bian)

From Female Graduates to Female Insurance Agents: Educationally Channeled Labour Mobility from Mainland China to Hong Kong

Research highlighted

Zhou, S. & Song, J. (2022). From Female Graduates to Female Insurance Agents: Educationally Channeled Labor Mobility from Mainland China to Hong Kong. Journal of Chinese Women’s Studies, 171(3). Available at: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/kopLQ74k-9n8I3ShrZtwWA

中文版本

In the increasingly interwoven global trends of educational mobility and labor migration, a growing number of young women have obtained higher education and acquired greater labor mobility, and have been involved in service work that is more professional and with higher job status. Nevertheless, educational mobility and labor migration are commonly regarded as two independent research fields. Education migration is often related to a promotion of employment opportunities for young people, which provides chances of social upward mobility for men and women. For labor migration studies from a gender perspective, female migrants are often found to concentrate in labor-intensive and low-paid service work. Little attention has been paid to the field where the two topics are related. In Hong Kong, due to the cross-border expansion of the insurance industry in recent years, many female graduates from mainland China have benefited from their cultural capital and cross-border social connections and have been recruited as insurance agents. This study examines the gendered experiences of cross-border labor mobility of these atypical skilled migrants and professional service workers.

This study adopted a qualitative research approach based on in-depth interviews with 32 female graduates who had mainland backgrounds and worked as insurance agents in Hong Kong. The study also draws on participant observation of their work and life, as well as online ethnography about how individuals and companies presented such cross-border labor mobility on social media. To examine women’s educationally channeled labor mobility, this study focuses on how they were recruited and why they chose to become insurance agents. The findings indicate that Hong Kong’s cross-border insurance business tended to recruit highly educated women with mainland backgrounds as professional, independent, and elite women, meanwhile with an emphasis on their patient and empathetic femininity. Such narratives restructured and reinforced gender stereotypes prevalent in service work. These highly educated women were able to utilize human capital and cross-border freedom to pursue greater autonomy in career choice against the control of natal families in places of origin. Nevertheless, these young women also faced a double marginality in the host labor market regarding gender and geography, and they still needed to balance family obligations and career aspirations over the life course. Women’s cross-border mobility helped them to pursue individualistic aspirations and negotiate new career pathways, which challenged traditional gender stereotypes in low-end feminized service work, but their professional and independent workplace images were still constrained by the gendered division of labor and structural inequalities in public and private spheres.

By focusing on female graduates in the cross-border insurance industry, this study demonstrates how the intersection of educational mobility and labor migration can provide new employment opportunities for highly educated women. To some extent, women’s cross-border participation in professional service work has undermined traditional gender role expectations, but their personal choices have not formed a fundamental challenge to gender and structural inequalities in the labor market and domestic spheres. Bridging the two research traditions on educational mobility and labor migration, this study suggests incorporating women’s education-based resource and horizon into the study of their working experience in the host labor market, and linking women’s diverse career choices with their evolving gendered self-positioning processes. The new perspectives can add to a better understanding of how women’s migration brings about new economic opportunities as well as social pressure, and contribute to a more comprehensive reflection on the gender and social implications of women’s evolving career choices.

Author Bio

Siyuan Zhou (周思媛),
The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Ms. ZHOU Siyuan (周思媛) is a Ph.D. candidate in Gender Studies Programme and the Department of Sociology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include gender and work, migration, and female entrepreneurship. Her doctoral project is about “doing gender” and “doing business” between Hong Kong and mainland China among female IANG insurance agents (Email: siyuanzhou@link.cuhk.edu.hk).

Dr. Jing Song (宋婧),
The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Dr. Jing Song (宋婧) is an Associate Professor in Gender Studies Programme at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and an Associate Researcher (by courtesy) at Shenzhen Research Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include family, gender, work, urbanization, migration and China’s market transition. She has published in China Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China, Urban Studies, Journal of Rural Studies, Work Employment and Society, Population Space and Place, China Review, Journal of Sociology, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Housing Studies, Asian Anthropology, and so on. Her book Gender and Employment in Rural China was published in 2017 by Routledge (Email: jingsong@cuhk.edu.hk).

Managing editor: Lisa (Zhiyun) Bian