Bilateral (Hong Kong): What Calculations and Strategies Drive Young Migrants? An Investigation of the Traffic Between London, Hong Kong and Beijing

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This project uses an innovative combination of visual and statistical methods to investigate young migrants traveling between Hong Kong, London, and Beijing. Young graduate migrants born between 1982 and 1992 who will be between 22 and 32 years old in 2012, in employment, and who have migrated independently are its focus - young people at the launch-point of their careers. In London it will investigate migrants from Beijing and Hong Kong. In Hong Kong it will investigate migrants from London and Beijing, and in Beijing it will investigate migrants from London and Hong Kong. It will uncover the calculations, strategies and reasoning behind these migrants' movements, as well as who they are and why they migrate along these routes. It will discover what resources they anticipate migration provides, and how they intend to deploy these in life-and-career planning. It will determine how they compare the opportunities and lives available to them in their departure and arrival cities. This project will discover what migration means and how it 'works' for these young migrants. These are important issues in a context of global competition for the next generation of skilled migrants. It is doubly important as the UK has changed the rules on post-study work visas, China has taken a more liberal attitude to mobility, and Hong Kong provides a new platform for skilled workers moving in and out of China. 'Brain drain' and 'brain gain' concerns governments and policy makers in Mainland China and its Special Administrative Region (SAR) of Hong Kong as well as the UK.There is no existing investigation of these routes or the young migrants who travel them. But with the rising influence of China and the migrants it draws, this is the right moment to investigate its migration links with the UK and Hong Kong. Migration research is focussed on unskilled arrivals not departures and skill. It also has a built-in age bias which has overlooked the young migrants our project investigates. Our research investigates an un-researched group, providing new empirical material uncovering their calculations and strategies. It make an important contribution to theories of migration which treats migrants as extensions of economic rationalization rather than people with complicated biographies, lives and decision making. The Hong Kong and the UK PIs in this project have the necessary research skills, research networks, linguistic skills and experience to bring together important material that spans the UK and China.