Migration behavior of students and graduates under prevailing regional dualism: the case of South Korea

Improvement in human capital stock and regional economic development are associated with migration for higher education as well as with the subsequent migration of graduates. Accumulation of human capital attributable to universities’ contribution is possible not only when students are attracted to the region for their higher education, but also when graduates stay to work in the university region. Previous research makes a strong argument supporting the notion that the better the quality of the university from which a student graduates, the lower the probability that she/he will migrate after graduation. However, the manner in which the quality of the university affects student mobility might differ, given the vast regional disparities. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting the migration behavior of students and graduates under the prevailing regional dualism in Korea, using the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study. Two-stage recursive models are applied to investigate how migration choice behaviors of students and graduates in the Seoul Metropolitan Area, which has a greater concentration of political, cultural, and financial functions, differ from those in the rest of the country. The empirical results demonstrate that the probability that the student will migrate for higher education is positively affected by the quality of the university. However, the results also show that the better the quality of the university, the higher the probability that graduates will migrate after completing higher education. Such a phenomenon is much more remarkable in the lesser developed areas.