Abstract
This chapter examines the returnees’ motivations and the larger forces that shape their decisions for return. It challenges the official discourse on the patriotism of the returnees and argues that the decision to return is much more often motivated by China’s rapid economic and social development, policy initiatives on mobilizing return moves, and better career opportunities provided by the improved academic system. However, returnees do not move solely for occupational reasons; they also move for social and cultural reasons including social attachment, cultural belonging, self-realization, and family considerations. This suggests that the act of returning is a complex process that involves both personal choices and negotiations of various conditions and regions—family, workplace, and the nation-state.
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Notes
- 1.
From Yigong Shi’s blog “guilai ba, wo de pengyou men” [Come home, my friends]. Retrieved from http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=space&uid=46212&do=blog&id=387684.
- 2.
An average annual salary for postdoctoral fellowship in the US is approximately $30,000 or more. However, the average annual salary for a faculty job in China is between $10,000 and $15,000.
- 3.
The “down to the countryside” movement started in 1968 when millions of educated urban youth, consisting of high school graduates and students, were forced to leave schools and sent “up to the mountains and down to the villages” (shangshan xiaxiang, i.e., to remote areas of China) in order to learn from the farmers and poor conditions there. These urban youth had experienced an extremely hard time living and working in the rural villages for years until the Cultural Revolution ended when they were finally able to be transferred back to the cities. For a detailed study on this topic, see Jian et al. (2006).
- 4.
After the Cultural Revolution, China reopened its door to the outside world to seek new ways of economic reform and social growth. Since early 1980s, China began to experience a new cultural effervescence, which was called “New Enlightenment.” It was a time that people had generally been in favor of science, freedom, democracy, and rationality. For a detailed study of the 1980s period of new enlightenment, see Chen and Jin (1997).
- 5.
To combat overpopulation, the Chinese government introduced a strict “one-child policy” in the early 1980s, which decrees that couples should only have one child. A second child would bring about monetary penalties and may possibly result in being denied job opportunities at the parents’ workplace. However, after more than 30 years implementation of the One-Child Policy, the problems of a lack of labor and an aging society have become severe in China. In October 2015, the Chinese government launched a new population policy, called Second-Child Policy, allowing couples to have two children.
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Chen, Q. (2017). Return Mobility, Motivations, and Driving Factors: Negotiating the Process of Return. In: Globalization and Transnational Academic Mobility. East-West Crosscurrents in Higher Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-886-1_4
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