Cultural Factors and Study Destinations of International Students

• Author: Hao Wei,Laixun Zhao,Ran Yuan
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/cwe.12291
• Date: 01 November 2019
• Published date: 01 November 2019

©2019 Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

China & World Economy / 26–49, Vol. 27, No. 6, 2019

26

Cultural Factors and Study Destinations of

International Students

Hao Wei, Ran Yuan, Laixun Zhao*

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the role of cultural factors in attracting international students

using data of 102 countries and regions from 2000 to 2015. Our results show that

the export of cultural products is conducive to the increase in international students.

International students choose to study in developing countries with an ofcial language

and religious beliefs that are different from their home country, but tend to choose

developed countries with a common language. We also analyze the features of inbound

and outbound international students specific to China. Our study indicates that “soft

power,” such as a unique culture, common values and migration networks, is important

for attracting foreign students.

Key words: Chinese students abroad, cultural factor, cultural goods export, international

student, migration network

JEL codes: F16, I23

I. Introduction

Studying abroad is a common and universal phenomenon in the globalized economy.

According to statistics from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural

Organization (UNESCO), the number of international students rose from 2 million

in 2000 to 4.6 million in 2015.1 Together with the increasing scale, the trajectory of

international students has also changed in the past four decades. While it has been

historically characterized since the 1960s as moving in one direction from developing

to developed countries or from secondary developed countries to leading developed

countries, the new pattern from the late 20th century can be summarized as two-way

*Hao Wei, Professor, Business School, Beijing Normal University, China. Email: weihao9989@163.com; Ran

Yuan, PhD Candidate, Business School, Beijing Normal University, China. Email: yuanran420@126.com;

Laixun Zhao (corresponding author), Professor, Research Institute for Economics & Business, Kobe University,

Japan. Email: zhao@rieb.kobe-u.ac.jp. Zhao also acknowledges nancial support from the Japan Society of

Promotion for the Science (Nos. 16H02016, 19H00594 and 19H01484).

1Data are obtained from UNESCO Institute for Statistics, available from: http://uis.unesco.org/.

©2019 Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Study Destinations of International Students 27

circulation, that is, mutual mobility between developing and developed countries (OECD,

2008). It is thus interesting and important to investigate the motivations for such student

mobility and the causes of these changes.

Cultural proximity can be a critical dimension, but it is difcult to be measured

comprehensively. International students may experience a great deal of unfamiliarity

in almost every aspect of their lives in host countries because of the differences in

language, culture, religion and educational systems. However, there is no existing

unified framework to explain the role of cultural factors in shaping international

student mobility.

In this paper, we attempt to accomplish this task using data of 102 countries

and regions for 2000–2015 to complement the existing literature in the following

aspects. First, most studies choose one country as the host country and investigate

the bilateral student flow between this country and other countries. In contrast, we

perform an overall analysis from a global perspective including many countries.

Second, the existing literature mainly focuses on developed countries and we ll this

gap by including and focusing on developing countries, paying particular attention

to China.2 Third, most existing literature also uses a single index to measure the

cultural factors by including only one of several potential factors, such as language or

religion, which cannot comprehensively reect the implications of the full spectrum

of culture. In contrast, we measure cultural proximity from several key aspects

including time-variant and time-invariant factors, proposing a uniformed framework

to comprehensively explore the role of culture in international student mobility, and

especially incorporating the volume of various cultural goods trade and the number of

immigrants who can transmit foreign culture.

Some existing studies have investigated the impact of similar language and religious

beliefs and migration networks on the destination choice of international students, but

are significantly different from our analysis. For example, Chen and Barnett (2000)

argued that international student exchanges based on linguistic relationships have

become less significant, while economic and political development play increasingly

important roles. The “push–pull” framework studies the relationship between student

outflow and the educational, economic and political dimensions in the host country

(Mazzarol and Soutar, 2002). Racine et al. (2003) investigated the case of students

in Québec, Canada and found that language is a decisive factor for foreign students

owing to this region. Park (2009) showed that academic expectations and the cultural

environment are the most important factors for South Korean students when selecting a

2Unless otherwise stated, “China” in this article refers to the Chinese mainland.