Among millions of international students who study in the U.S. every year, who stay and work in the U.S. and build their life as an immigrant, and what drives their decisions? Drawing from Social Dominance Theory, we analyzed the intersection between country of origin and gender on global professionals’ staying rate in the U.S. and proposed social status prospects to be an important driver of their migration decisions. In Study 1, utilizing the H1B visa data, we found a relatively higher rate of female stayers in EA professionals (vs. those outside EA) and a relatively lower rate of female stayers in Northern and Western European professionals (vs. those outside NW Europe). In addition, utilizing the political gender parity scores, we found that high male advantage of social status prospects in their home country and low male advantage of their heritage group in the U.S. can explain a relatively higher rate of female stayers. In Study 2, we conduct an experiment on young professionals in China and test how men and women react differently towards gender parity conditions among EA Americans in the U.S. in terms of their status prospects and, thus, their intention to work in the U.S.
