African international students’ career and job satisfaction: The case of China

Abstract

We aimed to examine the influence of international education career preparation on job acquisition (JA), skilled labour (SL), and job satisfaction (JS) among African student graduates of Chinese universities. Participants were 708 graduates from Ghana who attended Chinese higher education institutions (female = 37.6%; age range = 16 – above 41). The graduates completed the measures of educational training (ET), cultural translation impact (CTI), technology, SL, JA, and JS. A structural equation model analysis shows that career preparation with technology and ET related positively with JA and SL. However, graduates with lower CTI were less successful with their JA and SL in their home country. Additionally, while graduates with SL status had higher JS, JA tended to be associated with lower JS. Based on these findings, we propose that career preparation programs for international students should address both the hard-technical skills of technology education and the soft technical skills of job brokering of the country of origin taking into account the cultural translation.

Keywords:

• cultural translation impact
• educational training
• job acquisition
• job satisfaction
• skilled labour
• technology