The Determinants of College Graduates' Migration Decision and Its Impact on Starting Salaries in China

This study examines the determinants of college graduates' work migration decision and explores its impact on college graduates' starting salaries in China, using most recent nationally representative CSLM 2011 survey data. This study is the first one that incorporates student characteristics, institution attributes and regional characteristics (both economic and non-economic factors) in the regression analysis on determinants of work migration in the Chinese context. When investigating work migration's effects on graduates' starting salaries, in addition to the OLS model, the study also employs alternative identification strategies including instrumental variable method and propensity score matching method to account for the potential endogeneity of work migration and reduce selection bias. In addition, this study addresses sample selection issue with Heckman correction technique. The results reveal that the following variables have a significant positive impact on college graduates' work migration: study migration, science or engineering major, student leader in high school, passed CET4, passed CET6, engineering-concentrated institution, from 985 institutions, and from 211 instit