Motives behind the mobility of university graduates – A study of three German universities

The mobility of university graduates is influenced by economic factors and individual attitudes. The paper at hand focuses on the motives and studies the location preferences that university graduates have while they search for jobs (instead of a survey after graduation) and the reasons for these location preferences. To this end, prospective graduates from three universities in Hesse, Germany, have been surveyed in 2012. From this detailed data, we find that a majority has preferred locations during job search, but graduates with a strong focus on job opportunities are more often spatially open. Graduates focusing on social ties search dominantly at familiar places. Big cities attract especially graduates valuing job opportunities or amenities. As found previously in other studies, prior migration increase the propensity to move again after graduation. Overall, there is a large potential to retain graduates in the university region: most students include the university region into the spatial scope of their job search.