Shulou(Shulou.com)06/03 Report--

When I was browsing Zhihu two days ago, I saw this question:

"Why is the brain drain so serious in our country?"

The question of the subject comes from the data of *:

The number of people who went abroad in 2014 was 460000, while the number of returnees was only 365000.

Divided by the two, the "return rate" is only 79 per cent, compared with 78 per cent in 2015.

Therefore, the subject comes to the conclusion that there is a massive loss of overseas talents in our country.

Subsequently, all kinds of people jumped out one after another and began to analyze solemnly why China's brain drain is so serious. The question is, is this data interpreted correctly?

Is it really meaningful to calculate the so-called "return rate" based on the number of people going abroad and returnees in the same year?

If the data itself is meaningless, then the "reasons" behind the "analysis" are undoubtedly poles apart.

Please think about it for a minute.

Foreign students who returned in 2015 must have gone abroad in 2014 or even earlier.

Very few schools offer Program, which starts in January and graduates in December.

Therefore, by dividing the number of people returning home and those going abroad in the same year, the so-called "return rate" calculated is purely blind.

Generally speaking, the undergraduate degree abroad is 3-4 years, the master of the United States is 1.5-2 years, the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth is 1-1.5 years, and the PhD usually takes 5 years.

Since the proportion of people in different projects cannot be found, it is conservatively estimated that the average year of going abroad is 2 years.

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According to the data of × ×, the number of people returning home in 2015 was 409000, which was pushed forward by two years, and the number of people going abroad in 2013 was 414000. The homecoming rate in 2915 was 40.9 pegged 41.4 ≈ 99%, much higher than the so-called "78%". By the same token, the return rate in 2014 was 91% and even more than 100% in 2013 (probably because more students studying abroad in other years returned home in 2013, resulting in data explosion). In recent years, the rate of return is as high as more than 90%, so "serious brain drain in China" is obviously not established. Therefore, we should use our brains before analyzing the data in the future, and don't always think about making a big news criticism. If this problem is solved, what else can be dug up? You can also observe trends.

Collate the number of students studying abroad and returning home each year from 1949 to 2015.

After adding up, the total number of returnees is 2.18 million and the number of people going abroad is 2.92 million (excluding 2014 and 2015), resulting in a return rate of 75 per cent.

Why is the total only 75%? This is a far cry from our calculation of the rate of return from 2013 to 2015.

First of all, let's make a simple conjecture: the early return rate was low, so the overall return rate was dragged down.

Calculate the annual return rate separately (for reasons of length, starting from 1980):

Sure enough, since the reform and opening up, the rate of return in most years has been very low, with an arithmetic average of only 63%.

Therefore, it is concluded that in recent years, more and more foreign students choose to return home.

So, is there anything else you can dig up?

In the process of analysis, I found an interesting phenomenon. If you only look at the data after 2003, there are obvious depressions in 2000-2008.

In order to find out the reasons, especially to avoid the errors caused by the calculation method, I calculated the annual growth rate (YoY Growth) of the number of people going abroad and returning home.

The data show that there was the best part of a wave of going abroad in 2000-2002, followed by a rapid decline in the growth rate, even negative growth, and did not return to a growth rate of 20% + until 2008.

Therefore, 2008 is actually a watershed, and after 2008, studying abroad has become more popular.

Combined with the actual situation of people who go abroad, we can make such an assumption: before 2008, the proportion of undergraduate and doctoral students is higher, and the proportion of master's degree is higher after 2008.

Therefore, students who went abroad before 2008 should stay abroad for a longer time. We might as well think that the average time is 3.5 years, which is rounded up to 4 years.

After recalculating the rate of return:

As a result, not only did the depression remain unchanged from 2005 to 2007, but there was also a peak in 2002.

Because the errors caused by the calculation method have been ruled out here, the motivation behind it needs to be explored.

However, if we want to really and thoroughly explore the reasons, we can only ask the foreign students at that time through large-scale research, which is obviously not realistic.

Let's start with a wave of brainstorming here and roughly guess why:

In 2001, several major events took place in China: the successful bid for the Olympic Games and the WTO,APEC meeting, which inspired a group of foreign students to return to China in 2002.

From 2004 to 2008, the domestic public opinion storm gradually sprang up, and all kinds of public opinion made waves, which reached its peak in 2008. In recent years, more foreign students choose to stay abroad.

In 2008, there were snowstorms, earthquakes, poisoned milk powder and separatist anti-China forces on the outside. China successfully hosted the Olympic Games under internal and external difficulties. From then on, the form of domestic public opinion gradually reversed; coupled with the global financial crisis, opportunities overseas were reduced, and a large number of overseas students chose to return home for development.

If this is a formal data analysis, we can use the survey results to further analyze the driving factors of foreign students returning home, and then predict the return rate in the next few years.

To sum up, data analysis should first ensure the accuracy of data and methods, and then make bold assumptions and verify them carefully. In the continuous argumentation, valuable new information will be dug up gradually. Besides, what else can these data do? You can also calculate the size of the market.

Since 2015, more than 500000 people have studied abroad every year.

Taking into account that there is a preparation period of at least 2-3 years for studying abroad, the basic population of the overseas study industry is as high as 1.5 million every year.

As a result, the market size of overseas examination counseling, overseas study counseling / intermediary and international schools can be estimated respectively.

By the same token, more than 400000 foreign students return home every year, and these students need to apply for jobs at home.

Taking into account the preparation period of 1-2 years, we can roughly estimate the market size of job counseling (for international students).

These are only the simplest and most superficial analyses.

In the actual consulting project, we will first verify the accuracy of the data through multiple channels, and then build a model for in-depth analysis, of course, there are also repeated verification procedures, combined with qualitative analysis, to draw the final conclusion.

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