Ideological Orientation and the PRC Academic Migration: A Theoretical and Longitudinal Analysis*

Abstract

Since the end of the Cold War era, Western capitalist countries have experienced increased immigration of highly trained professionals from former socialist Eastern European countries and from socialist countries such as China and Cuba. In studies of the determinants of international migration, the focus has repeatedly been on demographic, economic, social network, and political explanations. This study addresses the migration of highly trained professionals from the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the United States of America (USA). Logistic regression analyses of longitudinal data collected between mid-1988 and the beginning of 1992 show that, in addition to the explanatory power of the above predictors, transvaluation—the shift emphases from the socialist collectivist and interdependent ideological orientations to individualistic, independent, and competitive ideological orientations contribute to the migration decisions of the Chinese intellectuals. The results of field interviews and longitudinal comparisons suggest that the academics who come from an oppressed bourgeois-class origin, and who experience more independent and competitive lifestyles in China, are more likely to acquire individualistic and independent ideologies than those who come from privileged and working-class origins in China. The transvaluation is thus argued as a determinant of international migration, rather than as the post facto justification or the assimilation effect that was argued in previous migration studies. The modest erosion of the socialist-collectivist and interdependent orientations among Chinese academics in the 1988 to 1992 three-and-half-year time frame further enhanced their migration decisions. The longitudinal analyses suggest that the modifications of the individual ideological orientations among the Chinese academics may have occurred before the migration movement, rather than after. This finding thus challenges previous research regarding the determinants of international migration.