From migrant student to migrant employee: Three models of the school‐to‐work transition of mainland Chinese in Hong Kong

Abstract

AbstractAgainst the backdrop of the internationalisation of higher education and the increasing migration of young people in recent decades, how migrant students experience their school‐to‐work transition in host societies has become an important issue. Although the literature has explored the school‐to‐work transition of migrant students in higher education from a structural and an individual perspective, most studies have analysed this transition as a one‐time decision or focused on the migrant students' job‐hunting tactics. This study enriches the discussion of the intersection of youth transition and migration by discussing transition as a process of multiple and connected events, continuous experiences, and subjective interpretations. It demonstrates the diversity of the transition process in three models, proactive, challenging, and accommodative, and highlights the processual nature of transition with temporal, spatial, biographical, and emotional dimensions.