Geographic Transformation and its Determinants of China’s Interprovincial Skilled Migration from 2005 to 2015

The rapid economic and social development leads to the substantial geographic transformation of internal skilled migration in the developing countries, which have received limited examination. Based on microdata from China’s 2010 and 2015 one-thousandth population sample surveys, we aim to explore the geographic transformation and its driving forces in China’s interprovincial migration of skilled workers engaged in knowledge-intensive and creative occupations, between 2005–2010 and 2010–2015. The results reveal a decline in the interprovincial mobility of skilled workers over time. While the eastern coastal region continues to serve as the primary migration destination, it has a declining siphoning effect for skilled workers. Contrarily, there has been an increase in the volume of skilled labour migrating from some eastern coastal provinces to central and western regions, and the brain drain in less-developed central and western regions has declined. The mobility of skilled workers in China is mainly driven by wages, while wages play a decreasing role in attracting skilled migrants. The coordinated regional economic development and the high housing price-income ratio in the developed areas have caused the shrinkage of the interprovincial mobility of skilled migrants. Moreover, searching for a better lifestyle within Chinese society made regional amenities encompassing qualified primary education services and a warm climate, and regional cultural tolerance increasingly important in attracting skilled migrants. These findings contribute to understanding the effects of rapid economic growth and lifestyle changes on the geographic transformation of internal skilled migration, in a developing world.