Taiwanese Youth's Intention to Work in China

Jui-Chung Allen Li, NYU Abu Dhabi
Chih-Jou Jay Chen, Academia Sinica

About half a million Taiwanese are working in China, but little is known about what motivated their move to China. In this study, we examine factors that affect Taiwanese youth’s intention to work in China using vignettes embedded in the panel survey of the Taiwan Youth Project. The respondents reported their positive beliefs and made normative judgments based on randomly chosen vignettes about some fictitious person's decision to work in China under various conditions. Preliminary results show that the respondents judged males, single persons (compared to those married with children), and those with parental consent to be both more likely and more appropriate to take a job in China. The fictitious person’s educational level and current salary were inconsequential, whereas the percent pay raise of the fictitious job had only a modest impact. These findings suggest that family values trump economic considerations in Taiwanese youth’s decision to work in China.