The intergenerational social mobility of internationally mobile students: The status attainment of returnees from abroad compared with non-returnees

The well-researched positive selectivity of international student mobility (ISM) participants with regard to parental education and social class identifies ISM as a strategy of distinction in times of a massification of tertiary education. Research has noted that returnees profit from the distinction their education gives them in the local labour market. However, studies from several countries suggest that about half of international students do not return home after graduation. How is social status transferred in these cases? The occupational statuses of ISM returnees and non-returnees do not differ significantly. Blau and Duncan's status attainment model for returnees finds higher similarity between the occupational status of graduates and their fathers as well as a higher explained variance when compared with the model for non-returnees. This suggests that some capitals of a graduate's family are not internationally transferable and complicates the notion of ISM as a strategy of intergenerational transfer of social status.