When the halo of my overseas credentials disappeared: Chinese student returnees and their domestic employability

Applying Bourdieu’s concepts of field and cultural capital, this study examines the nuanced employability of Chinese student returnees and their strategies amid declining recognition of their overseas credentials in the changing field of the domestic labour market. Drawing on qualitative interview data from 100 Chinese student returnees, this study reveals that student returnees’ employability has become more time-, place-, and institution-specific and is a dynamic, positional property embedded in their migratory trajectories, overseas education, and post-return job competition. As such, student returnees exercise agency and mobilise resources to negotiate their employability across several entangled fields. The findings challenge previous portrayals of student returnees as a homogenous group with unrealistic employment expectations. Instead, this study reveals that student returnees are aware of and strategically shape their nuanced employability in the domestic labour market.