Doctoral Dissertation Research: International Students and Talent Retention Strategies in the United States

随着美国大学招收更多的国际学生，企业和政策制定者越来越关注这些学生在美国劳动力市场上可能扮演的角色。国际学生对科技行业尤其有价值，因为他们比国内学生更有可能学习STEM科目。美国没有具体的政策来留住在外国出生的毕业生。与大多数其他发达工业国家一样，加拿大实施了人才留住战略(TRS)，通过让外国学生更容易获得工作许可、永久居留权和公民身份来鼓励他们留下来。此外，在那里的移民政策辩论中，留住人才是一个持久的主题。该项目使用书面证据以及对政策制定者和倡导者的采访来解释为什么TRS在加拿大通过，而在美国没有通过。这对NSF的资金来说是一个重要的问题，因为科学劳动力的结构是科学和创新政策的各个方面的基础。一些世界上最严谨、最先进的科学是在美国的大学和研究机构完成的。任何影响技术工人和高等教育的移民政策变化，都会对美国科学和美国科学家产生影响。因此，支持对移民政策制定过程进行科学严谨、政治不偏不倚的研究符合美国国家科学基金会S的利益。科学与技术促进计划拨款资助了对华盛顿特区政策制定者和倡导者的半结构化采访，这些人对移民和STEM劳动力感兴趣。此外，PI专门针对学术科学和信息技术行业的参与者，这些行业历史上一直高度依赖外国出生的熟练工人。这些采访包括政策辩论各方的倡导者。加拿大的面试已经得到了来自其他资助者的竞争性赠款的支持。PI转录渥太华和华盛顿特区的采访记录，将它们与关于这一问题的立法辩论合并为一个数据集，并使用定性数据分析软件对整个数据集的主题进行编码。主题既是从原始材料归纳出来的，也是从文学作品中演绎出来的。这个项目提供了关于移民政策是如何制定的以及谁参与制定的经验数据。在理论层面上，该项目修订了与社会科学领域的公共政策研究人员有关的决策理论。现有的理论框架可以解释为什么一些国家选择实施TRSS，但它们不能解释美国等负面案例。例如，政治经济学方法预测，发达民主国家对熟练工人的移民持高度开放态度，因为社会和政治成本微乎其微，但经济效益显著，并高度集中在商业精英手中。然而，尽管政策精英和商业利益集团已达成共识，支持技术移民，但美国尚未制定鼓励国际学生留在美国的政策。本文引入了社会学、经济学、人文地理学和政治学的更多见解，试图解决这一难题。

As American universities recruit more international students, businesses and policymakers are paying more attention to the role that these students could play in the US labor market. International students are particularly valuable to science and technology industries, since they are more likely than domestic students to study STEM subjects. The US does not have specific policies in place to retain foreign-born graduates in the workforce. Canada, like most other advanced industrial countries, has implemented talent retention strategies (TRSs) that encourage foreign students to stay by giving them easier access to work permits, permanent residency, and citizenship. Furthermore, talent retention is a persistent theme in immigration policy debates there. This project uses documentary evidence and interviews with policymakers and advocates to explain why TRSs passed in Canada but not in the US. This is an important issue for NSF funding because the structure of the scientific labor force underlies all aspects of science and innovation policy. Some of the world's most rigorous and most advanced science is done in American universities and research institutes. Any change in immigration policy that affects skilled workers and higher education will have an effect on American science and American scientists. As such, it is in the NSF?s interest to support scientifically rigorous, politically unbiased research on the immigration policymaking process. The SciSIP grant funds semi-structured interviews with policymakers and advocates in the Washington, DC area with interests in immigration and the STEM workforce. In addition, the PI specifically targets actors in the academic science and information technology industries, which have historically been highly dependent on foreign-born skilled workers. These interviews include advocates on all sides of the policy debate. Interviews in Canada have already been supported by competitive grants from other funders. The PI transcribes the interview transcripts from Ottawa and DC, combines them into a dataset with legislative debates on this issue, and codes the entire dataset for themes using qualitative data analysis software. Themes are derived both inductively from the source material and deductively from the literature. This project contributes empirical data about how immigration policy is made and who is involved in making it. At the theoretical level, this project results in a revision of theories of policymaking that are relevant to public policy researchers across the social sciences. Existing theoretical frameworks can explain why some countries have chosen to implement TRSs, but they fall short in explaining negative cases like the US. Political economy approaches, for example, predict that advanced democracies have a high level of openness towards the migration of skilled workers, as the social and political costs are minimal but the economic benefits are significant and highly concentrated in the hands of business elites. Yet despite the fact that policy elites and business interests have reached a consensus in favor of skilled migration, the US has not developed policies to encourage international students to stay in the country. Bringing in additional insights from sociology, economics, human geography, and political science, this dissertation seeks to solve this puzzle.