High Number of Chinese PhD and Bachelor's Students Stay in the Netherlands after Graduating - CBS Report

Over 60% of Chinese bachelor's and around half of Chinese master's degree graduates still live in the Netherlands 3 years after receiving their diplomas, a new report by Statistics Netherlands (CBS) states. And around 43% of Chinese PhD graduates are still in the Netherlands 10 years after the end of their PhD contracts. This is around 10 percentage points higher than the stay rate of the average international PhD student in the Netherlands, the quarterly Internationalisation Monitor, commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has found.  

While the bulk of Chinese who currently reside in the Netherlands work in the Accommodation and Food Industry (43% in 2018), higher education is also one of the most popular sectors for Chinese people working in the country.  

"This is to a large extent driven by the number of Chinese PhDs employed by Dutch universities. In 2018, there were around 400 Chinese PhDs in the Netherlands, around one-tenth of all international PhDs working at Dutch universities that year. Chinese people working in higher education are relatively young (the average age is 31), and men are often overrepresented in technical universities."

Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences, with its diverse student and staff component, also employs a number of Chinese nationals as academics and support staff. After Germany and Italy, China is the 3rd biggest source of international students for the Netherlands. However, Nuffic has predicted that global student mobility will probably decrease in the next 5 years due to COVID-19.  

In the academic year 2018/19, there were 4,475 Chinese students in higher education in the Netherlands (1,072 in universities of applied sciences (HBO), and 3,403 in research universities). Interestingly, the number of Chinese students in bachelor's programmes decreased between 2013/14 and 2018/19, while the number of master's students increased during this period.

Non-EU Students Contribute More to Dutch Economy

The CBS report, which focuses on economic relations between China and the Netherlands, states that academic cooperation with China is an attractive option is because it is a way of luring talented students and researchers to the country. "CBS research from 2019 also shows that international students – especially non-EU students – contribute significantly more to the Dutch treasury then what they cost the country."

Chinese Make Up 7th Largest Number of Internationals in the Netherlands

In 2019, the Dutch population stood at 17.3 million people of which 1.1 million were non-Dutch residents. They comprised mainly of Polish people (144,000), Germans (77,000), Turks (75,000), Syrians (74,000), Brits (47,000), Italians (39,000), Chinese (37,000), Belgians (35,000), Spanish (33,000) and Indians (31,000).

WUP 2/7/2020
by James Wittenborg
©WUAS Press