University graduate migration in Finland

Abstract

A high level of human capital is considered as an essential precondition for economic performance and regional competitiveness. However, university regions do not always manage to take advantage of the full potential of local higher education, as they are not always able to retain university students after graduation.Previous studies have presented remarkable regional differences concerning the share of graduates who remain in their university region after graduation. Hence, this paper has focused on geographical distribution and inter-regional mobility of university graduates in Finland. Long-term migration behaviour of all university graduates who completed their master's or equivalent degree in 2000-2015 was analysed using geographic information systems (GIS). The main finding of the paper is that university graduates in Finland are rather immobile, as the most active mobility takes places when transitioning from university to their first job. After that, the geographical distribution of the graduates is rather stable, which contradicts the general assumption of high mobility of university-educated people. Further, the migration flows are directed mainly towards the four largest city regions of the country, especially to the capital city region. Cross-migration between city regions with similar population sizes and population growth rate is marginal, and it seems that the difference in the population size and growth between the graduation region and the destination region has to be large enough to exceed the threshold for migration. Retaining university graduates seems to be especially challenging for the smallest and declining university regions.

Analyzing Determining Factors of Young Graduates’ Decision to Stay in Lagged Regions

“…Many studies on urban agglomeration have shown what makes well-educated people move to regions, which helps to fortify the absorptive capacity of regions [2,8,9]. However, attracting well-educated people could be challenging to lagged regions [10]. Young graduates' behavior in returning to lagged regions has been noted in a growing number of inter-regional migration studies [3,11].…”

“…In addition, this propensity decreased when they had a partner, children, or strong family ties, owing to the high costs of out-migration. [5,10,19].…”

“…Another finding is that young graduates have been widely known to return due to economic benefits [3,10,20]. Ample opportunities for labor performance and high wages were expected to be the main reasons for graduates to return [1,2,21].…”

What Attracts Me to Stay? A Qualitative Study on the Destination City Choice of the College Graduates

“…Some regions benefit from the influx of skilled labour and their counterparts suffer from severe brain drain. Regions are expected to benefit from higher education located within its domain, presupposing that highly educated people would be retained after their graduation and enter local labour markets, increasing local human capital levels [3].…”

“…Some students who move to an area for higher education are likely to stay in the area after their education is complete [1]. The migration behaviour of college graduates has been the focus of multedisciplines including geography, sociology, and public management for a few years [3]. The relationship between influence factors and human mobility is neither simple nor linear, rather it is often indirect and mediated by social, cultural, and economic drivers.…”