The Mobility After Mobility: Explaining Post-Graduation Mobility of Internationally Mobile Students

Moving the analysis beyond the usual stay/return dichotomy, we examine the career implications of further mobility for internationally degree-mobile tertiary students together with factors that increase or decrease the probability for mobility after graduation. Besides those who stay in the city of their studies and those who return home, we distinguish international students who are nationally or internationally mobile post-graduation. We find that studying in one's native language is universally connected to a lower likelihood of post-graduation mobility. Graduates from small cities had highest odds for further mobility while graduates from universities in major cities were less likely to move nationally or return home. By 2020, graduates who graduated in 2018 or earlier and moved to another country generally had higher-paying and more prestigious jobs than graduates who remained in their place of study.