Revue européenne des

migrations internationales

Les universitaires étrangers dans une ville mondiale : le cas de

Hong Kong
Monsieur Allan Findlay, F. L. N. Li, Ron Skeldon, Philip E. Ogden, Monsieur Yves
Charbit

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Findlay Allan, Li F. L. N., Skeldon Ron, Ogden Philip E., Charbit Yves. Les universitaires étrangers dans une ville mondiale : le
cas de Hong Kong. In: Revue européenne des migrations internationales, vol. 15, n°1,1999. Migration et ethnicité au
Royaume-Uni. pp. 121-137 ;

doi : https://doi.org/10.3406/remi.1999.1667

https://www.persee.fr/doc/remi_0765-0752_1999_num_15_1_1667

Fichier pdf généré le 20/04/2018

Resumen
Los universitarios extranjeros en una ciudad mundial.
Allan M. Findlay, Lin Li and Ron Skeldon.
Se ha escrito mucho sobre las relaciones internacionales entre las grandes ciudades, sin embargo la
mayoria de las investigaciones se han centrado bien en el análisis de la fuerza de trabajo en el sector
secundario, o bien en la movilidad de los ejecutivos y de los profesionales inducida por los
movimientos de capital. Este artículo viene a llenar el vacio existente en la investigación sobre la
migración cualificada de profesionales de la educacion y de la sanidad hacia las grandes ciudades.
Los autores analizan la cuestión apoyándose en una encuesta realizada a más de 400 universitarios
extranjeros que contribuyen a la especialización internacional de las competencias de Hong Kong
como ciudad mundial. Las circunstancias historicas específicas que durante la década de los noventa
han hecho posible la transformacion del estatuto de Hong Kong, que ha dejado de ser colonia británica
para convertirse en gran ciudad china agregan una dimensión particular a este estudio.

Abstract
Foreign Academies in a Global City : the case of Hong Kong.
Allan M. Findlay, Lin Li and Ron Skeldon.
Much has been written about the international linkages of global cities, but most migration research on
this topic has focused either on labour for the secondary sector or professional and managerial staff
moving in relation to flows of international capital. This paper addresses the lack of research on skilled
migration to global cities by professionals working in public sector activities such as health and
education. The empirical context is a survey of over 400 foreign academies contributing to the
international skill specialisation of Hong Kong as a global city. The historically specific circumstances of
Hong Kong's changing role in the 1990s from British colony to Chinese global city adds an extra
dimension to the analysis.

Résumé
Les universitaires étrangers dans une ville mondiale : le cas de Hong Kong.
Allan M. Findlay, Lin Li et Ron Skeldon.
On a beaucoup écrit sur les relations internationales entre les grandes villes, mais la plupart des
recherches se sont focalisées sur l'analyse de la force de travail dans le secteur secondaire ou sur la
mobilité des cadres et des professionnels induite par les mouvements internationaux de capitaux. Cet
article supplée à l'absence de recherches sur la migration vers les grandes villes de professionnels de
secteurs de la santé et de l'éducation. Il s'appuie sur une enquête auprès de plus de 400 universitaires
étrangers qui contribuent à la spécialisation internationale des compétences de Hong Kong en tant que
ville mondiale. Les circonstances historiques spécifiques qui gouvernent le changement du rôle de
Hong Kong dans les années quatre-vingt-dix, qui est passé du statut de colonie britannique à celui de
ville mondiale chinoise ajoute une dimension exceptionnelle à cette analyse.
 Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, 1999(15) 1 pp. 121-137 121

Foreign academics in a global city :

the case of Hong Kong

A.M. FINDLAY*, F.L.N. LI** and R. SKELDON*

Education is one of the most powerful forces for development, both as a

supplier of the manpower necessary for a modern economy and as a consumer of
human and physical resources. Education also serves major functions in the
globalisation of human activities, not least in internationalised economic exchanges.
These exchanges are co-ordinated from urban centres that have emerged to create a
functionally integrated hierarchy of global cities (Friedmann, 1986 ; King, 1990 ;
Sassen, 1991). These global cities control the increasingly complex structure of
international capital flows and need to be supported by the development of high quality
education, particularly in the tertiary sector. Arguably the greatest, certainly the longest
established, universities are not found in what could be classified as global cities :
Bologna, Heidelberg, Tubingen, Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, Princeton,
Ryukoku (Kyoto). However, there is no global city without its great university or
universities.

Sassen (1991) has demonstrated that global cities attract not only
international capital, but also international migrants. These migrants, she proposed,
are divided into two very different groups of workers : a wealthy, highly mobile group
of professionals on the one hand, and a poorly paid group on the other who provide
the basic services needed by the wealthy group, that « new labour aristocracy »
(Waldinger, 1992). This bipolar division of labour may be an oversimplification, or it
may not describe the situation in many global cities, and much further research is
required into this issue. Some, such as Sassen (1988), have focused on the migration
to global cities largely in terms of unskilled labour, while others, such as Beaverstock

* Department of Geography, University of Dundee DD 1 4HN, UK.

** Department of Geography, University of Dundee DD1 4HN, UK.
*** Population Division, UNESCAP Bangkok, Thailand.
122 A.M. FINDLAY, F.L.N. LI and R. SKELDON

(1994), have pursued the skilled side of the international moves. As global cities are
the principal locations for the headquarters of transnational corporations, they are host
to large numbers of skilled immigrants moving both within these companies and also
independently. For one study of mobility and migration within the electronics
industry, see Findlay et al. (1996).

The status of a global city is determined ultimately by its tertiary function

rather than by its significance as a manufacturing centre. Studies of banking and other
financial organisations attest to the importance of international skill transfers among
institutions in the major world financial sectors (Beaverstock, 1994, 1996 ;
Beaverstock and Smith, 1996). However, relatively little is known about highly skilled
staff working outside the private sector. Global cities, as centres of international skill
specialisation and centres of training and research excellence, are nodes in the
exchange of knowledge. Just how the international mobility of faculty and students
plays a part in sustaining centres of international research excellence remains largely
unknown.

The need for transnational companies temporarily to transfer staff from one
country to another for various functions (corporate communication, control and
supervision etc.) has been identified as a key mechanism accounting for a significant
part of observed skilled transient migration (Salt, 1988). In tertiary education, there are
no similar mechanisms of employer-initiated international transfers within the internal
labour market of institutions. Short-term secondments or sabbatical visits to other
universities are not uncommon, often facilitated by governments, but many
employment-related international moves undertaken by academics are channelled in
other ways. The extent to which academic personnel participate in the increased
population mobility around the globe, and the nature of their participation, are poorly
understood.

In an attempt to examine the mobility of academic personnel, the authors

undertook a survey of a sample of foreign staff employed in state-sponsored, higher
education and research institutions in Hong Kong. Drawing on the results from this
survey, the following objectives are pursued in this paper :

• to evaluate the characteristics of academic migration to Hong Kong ;

• to consider any changes in these characteristics in the context of Hong
Kong's transition from a British to a Chinese global city.

HONG KONG AS GLOBAL CITY AND THE ROLE OF THE

TERTIARY EDUCATION SECTOR

In the latter part of the twentieth century it has become evident that economic
and political forces operating at a global level, rather than socio-economic factors
working at a local level, have come to be the primary influences controlling

REMI 1999(15)1 pp. 121-137

Foreign academics in a global city 123

international migration. This has been as true of Hong Kong as it has been for other
Asian tiger economies. Over the last two decades, Hong Kong has emerged as a key
player in the international economy, meeting the many criteria of being a global city
(Friedmann, 1986 ; Skeldon, 1997b). Particularly, its functions in the economic growth
of the Pearl River delta and in linking the area to the international market are widely
recognised (Friedmann, 1995 ; Skeldon 1997a ; Sung et al., 1995). The 1984 Sino-
British Joint Declaration over the future of Hong Kong, and the post- 1979 opening up
of China to foreign capital, facilitated an economic boom in southern China. Millions
of mainland Chinese workers are working in enterprises set up by Hong Kong investors
in southern China. Encompassing this enormous workforce, the city of Hong Kong has
become the financial core of a major manufacturing region. It is a central global hub of
transportation and communications, and a vital commercial centre in which the
regional headquarters of over 700 transnational corporations are located (Hong Kong
Government Industry Department, 1995a). It is also a major cultural and convocation
centre, and it now has eight institutions of higher learning, funded through its
University Grants Committee (UGC)1.

Given Hong Kong's status as a global city, a relationship can be expected

between the scale of financial flows into the territory and the volume and character of
immigration. Globalisation has had both direct and indirect effects on migration trends.
A direct linkage is evident from the results of an annual survey of inward investment in
companies in Hong Kong. This shows not only that there has been a vast increase in
foreign capital in the 1980s and the 1990s, but also that inward investment companies
employ a significant number of expatriates. The survey also revealed that more than
half of these foreign employees were transferred to Hong Kong by their employers
from another branch of the company (Hong Kong Government Industry Department,
1995b). This confirms the significant role of inward investment in stimulating specific
patterns of skilled international migration.

The indirect linkage between Hong Kong's changing international role and
migration is revealed by official statistics, which confirm the rising number of foreign
nationals present in Hong Kong. As the wealth of the territory has grown, so too has the
demand for migrant services, particularly for domestic maids and construction workers,
but also for the highly skilled. Although there is some evidence that inmigration may
have slowed recently, as one of the authors of this paper observed as early as 1990,
there was unlikely to be a mass exodus from Hong Kong in the lead-up to the transition
to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, and the existing in- and outflows of population were
likely to be in the best interests of the continued stability and prosperity of Hong Kong
(Skeldon, 1990-91).

1 The University Grants Committee, previously known as the University and

Polytechnic Grants Committee, is an advisory body to the Hong Kong government
on the development and funding of higher education.

REMI 1999 (15) 1 pp. 121-137

124 A.M. FINDLAY, F.L.N. LI and R. SKELDON

Table 1 : Number of foreign nationals in Hong Kong at year end,

1990-1996 (top 10 countries)
Year 1990 1992 1994 1995 1996
Total Number 227,600 283,300 368,500 415,400 438,200
Philippines 61,200 83,800 115,500 128,300 128,800
United Kingdom 16,400 18,400 23,700 26,700 25,500
India 17,000 18,000 19,500 20,900 22,000
USA 19,300
Illustration non23,500 29,900
autorisée à la diffusion 32,600 34,700
Malaysia 11,700 12,600 13,800 14,200 14,300
Thailand 14,300 19,500 23,800 25,500 24,800
Australia 12,000 14,800 18,700 20,500 21,200
Japan 10,600 12,300 17,600 21,500 21,800
Canada 13,000 17,500 24,700 28,200 30,600
Indonesia - 11,000 19,700 25,900 31,600
Source of data : Hong Kong Immigration Department ; adapted from Findlay et al. (in press).

Table 1 shows that the expansion of the immigrant population has been due to
a growth of low wage service staff, such as the ever increasing numbers of Filipinos,
and also to a sharp rise in immigrants from advanced industrial nations. The dualistic
pattern of immigration to some extent upholds Sassen's (1996) thesis of immigration
fuelling social polarisation in global cities. According to the stock figures provided by
the Hong Kong Immigration Department (Table 1), the 1990s saw an expansion of the
US expatriate community in Hong Kong from 19,000 in 1990 to 35,000 in 1996, the
Japanese population increased from 1 1 ,000 to 22,000 and the comparable figures for
the UK rose from 16,000 to 26,000. For various reasons, the latter figures almost
certainly understate the size of the British expatriate community (Skeldon et al., 1995).
Census data also show that the vast majority of immigrant workers from developed
countries are employed in managerial and professional capacities. While a large
proportion of these immigrants are employed in manufacturing, financial and other
business sectors, a significant percentage (e.g. a quarter of the American working
population in the 1996 by-census) were engaged in community and social services (Li
et al., in press). These services included tertiary education, although the exact number
of foreigners involved in such services is unknown since disaggregated data were not
available.

Expansion of Hong Kong's tertiary education mirrors its growth as a global

city. Provision of tertiary education places has increased dramatically over the past 30
years with the number of full-time equivalent students rising from 4,100 in two
universities in 1965 to 69,000 in eight UGC funded institutions in 1996. The major
phase of that expansion took place after 1989 when the government decided to increase
access to full-time undergraduate education. This strategy was the direct result of a
policy to create places in Hong Kong in an attempt to prevent students leaving to
pursue their studies overseas. As a result, the proportion of the 17-20 age group who

REMI 1999(15) 1 pp. 121-137

Foreign academics in a global city 1 25

could receive tertiary education in Hong Kong rose from less than 5 per cent in the
mid-1980s to 18 per cent in 1994 (University Grants Committee, 1996).

Close examination of the higher education policy in Hong Kong reveals an

intimate link between economic development and tertiary education provision. A recent
report published by the University Grants Committee (1996) clearly indicates an
economic impetus for expansion in educational provision :

« ... as Hong Kong industry and commerce moved from low-skilled, low-wage
production towards more sophisticated markets and outputs, employers needed a better
educated workforce, including increasing numbers at the highest level » (paragraph 6.3)

« ... if Hong Kong is to retain a leading position in the commercial and

industrial development of China and the Pacific rim, it will need world-class higher
education institutions » (paragraph 29.5)

High quality staff are obviously essential to achieve the aim of providing
world-class higher education. Regarding staff recruitment, the Committee underlines
the importance of employing academics from outside the territory :

« Hitherto, HEIs [Higher Education Institutions] in Hong Kong have been

protected from localisation and introspection by their rapid rate of expansion. It has
simply not been possible to staff them by local recruitment because the number of
potential academic staff produced in earlier years was too small. That situation is now
changing. .. It will therefore be possible, and even tempting, to staff the HEIs very
largely with academics who have no experience outside Hong Kong. It is a temptation
which must be resisted. Higher education in Hong Kong, like commerce and industry,
depends for its vigour on having inputs from many cultures. If our HEIs are to attain
and remain in world class positions, if they are to pursue excellence ..., it is vital that
they include members of staff who are as familiar with libraries and laboratories in
Beijing, Canberra, both Cambridges and Tokyo as they are with those in Hong Kong
itself. » (paragraphs 33.6 & 33.7)

Throughout the report there is also an emphasis on language training in

tertiary education. Proficiency in both English and Chinese is considered to be
essential for the social and economic well-being of the territory.

The report thus suggests that immigrant academics have played, and should
continue to play, an important role in Hong Kong's higher education. Their
contribution is considered to be essential to maintaining a vibrant economy and the
continued status of Hong Kong as a global city. The role of expatriate academics,
however, can also be affected by other changes that Hong Kong has been undergoing.
The transition of Hong Kong from a British colony to a Chinese Special Administrative
Region (SAR) on the 1st July 1997 is a historical event which is likely to bring about
political and cultural changes in the territory even although the Chinese have pledged
to maintain the existing system for 50 years. To what extent the migration of academics

REMI 1999(15) lpp. 121-137

126 A.M. FINDLAY, F.L.N. LI and R. SKELDON

has been, and will continue to be, influenced by this transition, and by Hong Kong's
future economic development, will be addressed later in this paper.

While the presence of expatriates in tertiary education, especially in some of

the longer established institutions, has been fairly prominent, there is a lack of official
statistics on the size of the expatriate academic community. Higher education
institutions in Hong Kong do not maintain a record of the ethnic origin of staff but only
of the number on overseas terms of service. Many of those on such terms of service are
returned Hong Kong Chinese from overseas universities and research institutions. For
obvious reasons such information is confidential and therefore not available. Their
presence, however, demonstrates the complexity of the educated and skilled
community in Hong Kong. A Hong Kong Chinese who may have left as a youngster
and finished all of his or her education abroad, to return as a mature adult, may feel as
much a foreigner in the city as the expatriate in the strict sense. Many of those returned
Hong Kong Chinese may have foreign passports and may therefore legally be
expatriates. Given the dearth of information, there was clearly a need for a survey to
examine the characteristics of this community although the focus had to be, for
practical reasons, on the more 'typical' expatriate, the non-Chinese.

METHODOLOGY OF THE SURVEY

We conducted a postal questionnaire survey using as our sampling frame the

mailing list of the staff included in the academic calendars of Hong Kong's tertiary
education institutions for session 1993-94. At the time of the survey, Hong Kong's
tertiary education sector (funded by the University and Polytechnic Grants Committee)
consisted of three established universities (Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong
Kong University of Science and Technology, University of Hong Kong); two
polytechnics (City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Polytechnic) and two
colleges (Hong Kong Baptist College, Lingnan College). All seven institutions were
included in our study. The focus of the survey was non-Chinese teaching and senior
administrative staff. We extracted from the calendars the names and departmental
addresses of all the non-Chinese members of staff. Given the impossibility of
distinguishing between surnames which could have originated in Hong Kong, China,
Taiwan, Singapore or elsewhere in the overseas Chinese network, we regrettably had to
exclude all these groups from the survey. The exclusions extended further to include
names such as Lee or King which may or may not have been Chinese. The
questionnaire asked about personal particulars, migration history, perceptions of Hong
Kong's future in relation to 1997 and various other issues. We informed the directors of
personnel at the seven institutions that we were running the survey and used the
internal mailing system in order to distribute the questionnaires.

Our survey was organised so that it was possible to relate the returned
questionnaires to particular institutions but not to particular individuals. Thus, as can be
seen in Table 2, we were able to compare response rates from the seven tertiary institutions
that we surveyed. The survey generated 429 returned questionnaires, with an overall

REMI 1999(15) 1 pp. 121-137

Foreign academics in a global city 127

response rate of 47 per cent. Fifteen of the respondents were excluded from our analysis.
These were mainly non-Chinese people who were born and brought up in Hong Kong, and
thus did not meet our criteria of being immigrants. The response rate was considered
extremely satisfactory. However, given that we offered respondents confidentiality and
anonymity, we therefore had no option of a follow-up letter or telephone call.

Table 2 : Questionnaire response rates

Number mailed Returns Response rates

HK University 340 139 40,6

HK Poly 158 75 47,3
City Poly Illustration non134 64
autorisée à la diffusion 47,8
Chinese University HK 117 57 48,7
University of Sc & Tech 85 46 54,1
Baptist College 52 29 55,8
Lingnan College 26 19 73,1
TOTAL 912 429 47,0

It is interesting to note that the response rates showed a consistent inverse

correlation with the size of the expatriate population in each institution ; the smaller the
numbers, the higher the response rate (Lingnan) and vice versa (HKU). The high
response rate encountered in this survey was indicative of the co-operation we received
in our other surveys of the expatriate population in Hong Kong, whether the respondents
were engineers, civil servants or staff in tertiary education. At the time of the surveys the
issue of "localisation" of staffing within Hong Kong was under intense discussion and it
may well be that the topicality of the issue had a very positive impact on our expatriate
response rates. We consider the survey results to be a unique resource representing the
position of a large group of academic migrants at a very specific point in time.

RESULTS

Characteristics of academic immigration to Hong Kong

From our inspection of the university calendars, we estimated that expatriates

accounted for about a quarter of the total academic staff in Hong Kong's tertiary
education sector, with the proportion varying from 35-40 per cent in the case of the
University of Hong Kong to 15-20 per cent for the Chinese University of Hong Kong
and the Hong Kong Polytechnic. Such an inter-institutional variation is hardly
surprising since the University of Hong Kong is the oldest tertiary establishment with a
history closely linked to the city's colonial past. Furthermore, at the time of the survey,
all teaching and examination at this university (except in Chinese language and
literature) were carried out in English, while other tertiary institutions used varying
combinations of English, Cantonese and Mandarin.

REMI 1999(15) lpp. 121-137

128 A.M. FINDLAY, F.L.N. LI and R. SKELDON

Figure 1 shows the rapid, exponential growth in the number of expatriate staff
recruited into Hong Kong's tertiary education sector over the past 35 years. About 70
per cent of our sample were appointed in the 1984-1993 period and almost half had
taken up employment in the five years prior to the survey. This growth can partly be
explained by the fact that some of the earlier recruits would have already left the
institutions and therefore would not be included in the survey. It is also clearly a
reflection of the recent expansion in tertiary education.

Figure 1 : Survey of expatriates in tertiary education :

year when first employed in Hong Kong

Illustration non autorisée à la diffusion

59-63 64-68 69-73 74-78 79-83 84-88 89-93

Year

The overwhelming majority of the academics, irrespective of age, were male,

some 83 per cent, showing the recurrent bias in the history of university recruitment. At
the time of the survey, the majority of the respondents were in the mid to late career
phases of their employment cycle : only 3 per cent were younger than 30 with some
72,5 per cent 40 years of age or older (Table 3). Just over three quarters were married.

Table 3 : Age of expatriate respondents at time of survey

Age Frequency %
<25 2 0,5
25-29 10 2,4
30-39 96 23,2
Illustration non autorisée
40-49 164 à la diffusion
39,6
50-64 136 32,9
64 + 3 0,7
Missing 3 0,7
TOTAL 414 100

REMI 1999 (15) lpp. 121-137

Foreign academics in a global city 129

For four fifths of the sampled academics, their current employer was also their
first in the tertiary education sector in Hong Kong, showing that mobility upon reaching
their destination was relatively limited. The vast majority had obtained their current
position through formal channels such as professional journals, the media or institutional
links, with less than 10 per cent acknowledging the importance of friends or family in
finding their employment. Their largely self-initiated moves contrasts with findings from
our other surveys of expatriates employed by private companies, which indicated intra-
company transfer as a significant migration channel (Findlay and Li, in press).
Without the existence of a means to facilitate intra-organisational transfer,
expatriates working in the tertiary education system could be expected to be less mobile
than those working in private industry. Our results, however, revealed a fairly high degree
of international mobility within the sample. Sixty per cent of the sample had made more
than one international migration for employment-related reasons after the age of 1 8 years
(excluding return moves to country of origin). Not all the moves involved employment
with the tertiary education sector although, in the majority of cases, the migrants had
engaged in educational services including, for example, language instruction through the
British Council. As far as degree of mobility is concerned, the migration patterns followed
by some expatriate academics appeared to be similar to those of skilled transients found in
transnational corporations. Some 16 per cent of the academics surveyed had undertaken
four or more international moves away from their home country compared with a slightly
higher percentage (24 %) of expatriate engineers surveyed by the authors.

The respondents were asked to indicate the reasons for their migration to Hong
Kong. Table 4 shows the four most frequently stated answers. Of particular interest is
the large proportion of responses citing better salary as a major motive for their
migration. By the late 1980s, academic employment in Hong Kong's higher education
had become extremely attractive in terms of salaries and associated benefits compared
with those in the UK, Australia and even North America. Most of the respondents who
had moved from academic posts in these countries to Hong Kong had experienced an
increase in salary of 25 per cent or more.

Table 4 : Motives for current migration to Hong Kong

(multiple motives were possible)
Motives Frequency % (n = 398, 16 missing)
Career development 265 à la diffusion
Illustration non autorisée 66,6
Better salary 182 45,7
To gain experience 152 38,2
Dissatisfaction with previous job 113 28,4

From academic migrants to academic transients ?

In order to consider any changes in the characteristics of academic

immigration over time, we divided the expatriate staff into two groups based upon the
date of their first employment in Hong Kong, taking 1 January 1990 as the dividing

REMI 1999(15) 1 pp. 121-137

130 A.M. FINDLAY, F.L.N. LI and R. SKELDON

line. There were several reasons for this subdivision by time period. First, the plans to
expand tertiary education, implemented from 1989, were beginning to feed through to
recruitment by early 1990. Second, those who had arrived from 1990 onwards,
presumably, were coming in the knowledge of the events of Tiananmen Square in
June 1989 and the increasingly hard line China was taking towards political
developments in Hong Kong. Third, unlike the previous cohorts of academics who
generally were granted virtually permanent conditions of employment, a greater
proportion of the recruits in the 1990s were offered contract terms, usually for three
years. This raises the question of whether the recent migration of academics was
characterised by those coming with fairly limited time horizons and mainly for
economic reasons. Were they essentially academic transients or even academic
« mercenaries », whereas the previous generation of university teachers had been
made up of those who had gone out with the intention of spending the rest of their
careers within a more relaxed, colonial tradition ? This idea would be consistent with
Hong Kong's transition from a colonial city backwater of the 1950s to a global city
and economic powerhouse in the 1990s. Our data, to anticipate, show that while
elements of the basic hypothesis hold, the reality is somewhat more complex than the
simple division might suggest.

Table 5 : Year of first employment in Hong Kong (pre-1990 vs. 1990 onwards) by
respondent characteristics and perceptions
Characteristics/perceptions Significance values of chisquares
Current age (< 40, 40-49, > = 50) p<,01
Sex n.s
Current institution p<,01
Country of origin (UK vs others) p<,01
Migration motives : career development n.s.
better salary p<05
to gain experience p<,01
dissatisfaction with n.s.
Illustration non autorisée à la diffusion
previous job
« Working in Hong Kong after 1997 will be much more p<,05
difficult than at present »*
« I have no confidence in the stability of Hong Kong after p< ,01
1997 »*
« Overseas citizens working in Hong Kong will be in a n.s.
better job bargaining position after 1997 »*
« The higher education in Hong Kong will remain p<,05
substantially unchanged after 1997 »*
Intention to leave Hong Kong** P<,01
* Foritude statements, the respondents were asked to indicate whether they « strongly agree »,
« agree », « disagree », or « strongly disagree ».
** The responses included : (1) do not intend to leave Hong Kong despite 1997 ; (2) will leave
for political reasons associated with 1997 ; (3) will leave for economic reasons associated
with 1997 ; (4) intend to leave for other reasons.

REMI 1999(15) lpp. 121-137

Foreign academics in a global city 131

A comparison of the characteristics of those who took up their first

employment in Hong Kong before 1990 with those who came later is given in Table 5.
Not all the characteristics show significant differences. For example, there are no
differences in the gender pattern of recruitment pre- and post-January 1 990. Those who
came more recently were, as one might expect, significantly younger although there
was still an overall tendency to recruit at the mid to late career stages. Some, given the
prevailing conditions in tertiary institutions in the United Kingdom at the time, took
early retirement and came out to Hong Kong at the end of their careers.

One of the most significant differences, and one clearly consistent with the
basic hypothesis, was that the field of recruitment had expanded considerably. Before
1990 the expatriates in the tertiary education sector had come predominantly from the
United Kingdom where some 60 per cent originated. From 1990, this proportion had
declined to exactly one third, with much larger numbers being recruited from North
America and Australasia. This is but part of the internationalisation of the Hong Kong
immigrant population (Skeldon, 1994). There may still be a bias, although clearly
declining, towards British-style education but this is realised more through recruits
from « old Commonwealth » universities in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. At the
time of the survey, Hong Kong was still legally a colony, although rarely referred to as
such (the preferred word being « territory »). As a result, it was still part of British and
Commonwealth networks as far as migration was concerned.

Another difference between those who had arrived pre- and post-January 1 990
was that the recent arrivals were more likely to say that they had come to gain
experience or to obtain a better salary as the reasons for their migration to Hong Kong.
As already mentioned, the generous salaries are a relatively recent phenomenon.
Government policy to develop its local universities into centres of excellence
(University Grants Committee, 1996) supported by generous funding might have made
working in Hong Kong a more stimulating option in the 1990s than in earlier decades.
Furthermore, the image of Hong Kong as a vibrant global city and the historically
unique handover of a capitalist British colony to a regime controlled by a communist
party brought worldwide attention to the city in the 1990s. In such a context, working
in Hong Kong would be seen as enhancing not only career development but also other
socio-cultural experiences of the migrant.

The attitudes of the expatriates covered in the survey towards 1 997 also varied
depending on their time of first employment in Hong Kong (Table 5). Those who had
arrived in Hong Kong before 1990 tended to be much more pessimistic than the more
recent arrivals. Although a minority in both groups had little confidence in the future of
Hong Kong after 1997, that minority represented over 40 per cent among earlier
arrivals and about one third of more recent arrivals. The former group also saw that the
working conditions post- 1997 would be much more difficult. The differences in
attitudes between the two groups cannot simply be explained in terms of relative age.
Indeed, no significant relationship between age and attitudes has been found. Although
the pre- 1990 group was indeed older, when the sample was controlled for age, the
differences in attitudes between the two groups was still significant, as shown by the
logit models in Table 6. It appears likely that those who had been in Hong Kong longer

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132 A.M. FINDLAY, F.L.N. LI and R. SKELDON

were more attuned to the mood swings of Hong Kong and were more sensitive to, and
involved in, the continuous barrage of analyses and debates concerning the territory
and China's attitudes towards the transition. More recent arrivals were less concerned
about these issues but were caught up in the excitement of a new job in a dynamic and
novel environment. Those who took up employment in Hong Kong in the 1990s
presumably had some knowledge of the political changes Hong Kong was undergoing
and decided to move there despite these changes. It is also likely that they did not
intend to stay in Hong Kong for long and were therefore less personally affected by the
changes. The respondents' stated future migration intention has indeed confirmed that
more of the recent arrivals planned to leave the city (Table 7).

Table 6 : Logit models of confidence in the stability of Hong Kong after 1997 (1)
Logit Variables included in Likelihood ratio chi df
models models+ square
Illustration non autorisée à la diffusion
N 7,84 ,165
N, N*A 7,38 ,061
N, N*Y, N*A 1,81 ,404
Difference in chi-square between models 2 and 3 = 5,57, df = 1, p < ,01, which means that the
effect of year of employment is significant even after age has been controlled for.
(1) Due to small cell frequencies, the responses were re-grouped into "agree" and "disagree" for
the logit analysis.
+ N = confidence in stability after 1997 ;
A = current age (< 40, 40-49, > = 50) ;
Y = year of first employment in Hong Kong (pre-1990, 1990 onwards).

Table 7 : Year of first employment in Hong Kong by intention

to leave the territory : frequency and row percentages
Do not intend Will leave for Will leave for Will leave for
to leave political reasons economic reasons other reasons
associated with associated with
Illustration non autorisée
1997 à la diffusion
1997
Pre-1990 89 (37,7 %) 53 (22,5 %) 13(5,5 %) 81 (34,3%)
1990 onwards 47 (29,9 %) 19(12,1 %) 4 (2,5 %) 87 (55,4 %)
Chi-square = 18,89, df - 3, p < ,0005.

We found that there was a higher proportion among those who arrived before
January 1990 who intended to stay after 1997 than among those who arrived later.
Even though, as a group, they were more pessimistic about the future, 38 per cent of
the earlier migrants intended to stay despite 1997, while only 30 per cent of the group
that arrived from 1990 onwards wished to stay on for the transition in sovereignty.
Again, looking at those who intended to leave, we find a difference between the two

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Foreign academics in a global city 133

groups. The proportion of those who would leave from the pre-1990 group for political
reasons was higher than for the more recent arrivals, who primarily intended to leave
for reasons not associated with 1997. These data lend substance to the idea of key
economic and social differences between longer-term and shorter-term expatriate
employees in the tertiary education sector. Despite being somewhat more pessimistic as
a whole, and with a higher proportion of those who would leave going for political
reasons, the longer-term academics were paradoxically more committed to Hong Kong.
Some of the longer-term migrants might have little alternative as they might have
difficulty finding suitable employment elsewhere. Significant numbers among this
group were in a sense 'trapped' in their employment in Hong Kong irrespective of their
fears for the future. They were too young to retire but had cut off their employment
prospects elsewhere and were too old to start anew. Among those who had come since
1990 was a substantial number who had indeed come as academic mercenaries to take
advantage of the financial and social benefits of working in a global city. Many would
leave before 1997 but for reasons other than the political, even though they might feel
reasonably confident about Hong Kong's future stability and prosperity. This group had
more options open to them, had greater mobility, and many were young enough to
move on elsewhere, or back home.

CONCLUSION

This paper has reported on a survey of academic migrants in the tertiary

institutions in Hong Kong at a critical point in its history. The results are clearly open
to a number of different interpretations. The article set out with the thesis that Hong
Kong had been not only Britain's last major colony but also a global city. These dual
roles had moulded the character of academic migration to Hong Kong in the early
1990s. As the survey has shown, academics arriving in Hong Kong after 1990 were
significantly different from the migrants of an earlier era. This was true not only in
terms of their socio-demographic characteristics, but also in terms of their attitudes to
the future of Hong Kong and the meaning of their migration. Although immigrant
academics arriving in the 1990s were less concerned about the political changes
surrounding the transfer of sovereignty, perhaps paradoxically this group was also less
committed to remaining in the territory after 1997. This raises the interesting and
important question of why they migrated to Hong Kong in the first place. Their self-
assessment of their migration motives provided some clue, indicating a greater desire
to achieve a better salary and international experience than their predecessors.

Interpretation of the survey in the absence of a post- 1997 follow-up study of

our respondents is inevitably fraught with difficulties. We would argue that, to a large
extent, many of the changes in the characteristics of the migrants working in Hong
Kong's tertiary education sector, which became evident in the 1990s, would have taken
place even in the absence of the political transition in Hong Kong. The expansion in
tertiary education and the changing characteristics of the academics in tertiary
education were an integral part of Hong Kong's transition to a global city. In education,
as in other sectors, trends towards globalisation have demanded international
exchanges of human capital with other global cities. As studies of other forms of highly

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1 34 A.M. FINDLAY, F.L.N. LI and R. SKELDON

skilled manpower have shown (Findlay, 1988), these exchanges tend to involve well-
paid transient migrants rather than long-term settlers. In one sense, it may therefore be
justifiable to describe the changes revealed by our survey as a switch from academic
migrants to academic transients or even academic "mercenaries", but it is important to
recognise that the switch parallels similar developments in other highly skilled parts of
the service sector of all global cities. This interpretation of the survey results is
inevitably a partial one. One might argue that the group of earlier migrants captured by
our survey was methodologically biased towards the more permanent stayers since
earlier transient migrants were likely to have left the territory already and thus not be
included in the survey. However we believe that increased population mobility around
the globe and Hong Kong's transition from a British colony to a global city have
contributed significantly to the changing characteristics of its immigrant community.
Furthermore, it is important to point out that the transience of staff in tertiary education
in Hong Kong has also been fuelled on the one hand by specific staff recruitment
policies which favour short-term contracts in the 1990s, and on the other hand by an
eagerness amongst some academics to move on after 1997.

The critical and final point that needs to be raised concerns the future. What
role can a large, mainly non-Chinese, expatriate university community play in the
growing Chinese cultural scene in Hong Kong ? If Hong Kong is to remain a truly
international city rather than becoming merely a Chinese city, then it will need to
bolster the international base of its institutions of higher learning. If Hong Kong's
tertiary education policy remains one which emphasises international linkages, as
claimed in the University Grants Committee (UGC) report, cited earlier, we could
expect transient expatriate academics to continue to play a vital role in shaping Hong
Kong's position as a global city. Such has been the experience in Singapore, one of the
other major global cities in the region. However, there is the possibility that Hong
Kong may gradually become more culturally oriented to China. The global history of
the immediate aftermath of decolonisation is not exactly reassuring on this point. There
will almost certainly, and understandably, be an increase in "Chinese" If these trends
can stop short of a chauvinistic nationalism, then Hong Kong will almost certainly be
reinvigorated by yet further layers of ethnic consciousness. If not, then the future looks
more bleak. Already there are ominous signs. There have been claims of ethnic bias in
recruitment and promotion, particularly at Hong Kong's oldest tertiary institution, the
University of Hong Kong, and staff morale, both Chinese and non-Chinese, appears to
have waned. The politicisation of academic life is a definite possibility.

There are other more tangible signs too, such as current reforms in school
education that will see, from September 1998, Chinese used as the language of
instruction in secondary schools. Already, however, this policy has run into fierce
resistance with around one hundred schools, about one quarter of the total, being
granted an exemption to retain their English language instruction. The UGC's report,
whilst maintaining English proficiency as crucial in tertiary education, also stresses the
importance of Chinese communication skills. In terms of staff recruitment, the question
thus becomes whether this cultural reorientation, together with the need to maintain
international linkages, may mean that preference would be given to bilingual Chinese
scholars who have had overseas education and/or work experience. There is no

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Foreign academics in a global city 135

shortage of supply of such scholars and we can expect the composition of the expatriate
workforce to change. However, it is unlikely that they will displace all the non-Chinese
migrant staff in Hong Kong's tertiary education sector, although, almost certainly, the
size of that academic expatriate community will shrink2. Furthermore, the new cultural
orientation of Hong Kong, together with its global city status, might mean that
transience will become an even more prominent feature amongst the non-Chinese
immigrant academics in Hong Kong.

Acknowledgement

We are extremely grateful to our colleague John Jowett for his contributions to
the project. His comments on an earlier version of this paper are most valuable. The
research project was supported by grants from the UK Economic and Social Research
Council (R000233549 and L324253026).

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 RESUME- ABSTRACT - RESUMEN 137

Les universitaires étrangers dans une ville mondiale :

le cas de Hong Kong

Allan M. FINDLAY, Lin LI et Ron SKELDON

On a beaucoup écrit sur les relations internationales entre les grandes villes, mais la
plupart des recherches se sont focalisées sur l'analyse de la force de travail dans le secteur
secondaire ou sur la mobilité des cadres et des professionnels induite par les mouvements
internationaux de capitaux. Cet article supplée à l'absence de recherches sur la migration vers les
grandes villes de professionnels de secteurs de la santé et de l'éducation. Il s'appuie sur une
enquête auprès de plus de 400 universitaires étrangers qui contribuent à la spécialisation
internationale des compétences de Hong Kong en tant que ville mondiale. Les circonstances
historiques spécifiques qui gouvernent le changement du rôle de Hong Kong dans les années
quatre-vingt-dix, qui est passé du statut de colonie britannique à celui de ville mondiale chinoise
ajoute une dimension exceptionnelle à cette analyse.

Foreign Academics in a Global City : the case of Hong Kong

Allan M. FINDLAY, Lin LI and Ron SKELDON

Much has been written about the international linkages of global cities, but most
migration research on this topic has focused either on labour for the secondary sector or
professional and managerial staff moving in relation to flows of international capital. This paper
addresses the lack of research on skilled migration to global cities by professionals working in
public sector activities such as health and education. The empirical context is a survey of over
400 foreign academics contributing to the international skill specialisation of Hong Kong as a
global city. The historically specific circumstances of Hong Kong's changing role in the 1990s
from British colony to Chinese global city adds an extra dimension to the analysis.

Los universitarios extranjeros en una ciudad mundial

Allan M. FINDLAY, Lin LI and Ron SKELDON

Se ha escrito mucho sobre las relaciones internacionales entre las grandes ciudades, sin
embargo la mayoria de las investigaciones se han centrado bien en el anâlisis de la fuerza de
trabajo en el sector secundario, o bien en la movilidad de los ejecutivos y de los profesionales
inducida por los movimientos de capital. Este artfculo viene a llenar el vacio existente en la
investigaciôn sobre la migraciôn cualificada de profesionales de la educacion y de la sanidad
hacia las grandes ciudades. Los autores analizan la cuestiôn apoyândose en una encuesta
realizada a mas de 400 universitarios extranjeros que contribuyen a la especializacion
internacional de las competencias de Hong Kong como ciudad mundial. Las circunstancias
histôricas especîficas que durante la década de los noventa han hecho posible la transformacion
del estatuto de Hong Kong, que ha dejado de ser colonia britânica para convertirse en gran
ciudad china agregan una dimension particular a este estudio.

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