Nearly 80 percent of Chinese students have chosen to return home after studying abroad since the late 1970s, a recent report from a government-backed agency revealed.

An overseas returnee attends an interview at a job fair in Beijing. [File photo]

From 1978 to 2015, more than 4.04 million Chinese students went to study overseas. Of this number, nearly 2.78 million people finished their education and nearly 2.22 million people, or 79.87 percent, returned home for career development, according to a blue paper released by an agency under the Ministry of Education.

In 2015, the ratio of Chinese students going abroad for education to those returning home after pursuing overseas education lowered to 1.28:1, compared with 3.15:1 in 2006.

The majority of the returnees, 80.7 percent of the total, returned home with a master's degree. Most of them studied in the UK, the United States, Australia and France. The most popular majors were management, science and economics.

Nearly half of the returnees hoped to work in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the four most developed cities in China. More than three tenths of them wanted to work in the financial industry.

"You might live an affluent life overseas, but you will achieve your full career potential in China with the country's many favorable policies," said Chen Peng, who returned to China in 2009 after obtaining a doctorate at the University of Chicago. Chen was born in the late 1970s. In 2009, he joined a project run by the prestigious Peking University with the aim of promoting young talents. Later, he joined an inter-university research center sponsored by three ministries. In 2014, he was promoted to the rank of professor and became one of the youngest professors at Peking University.

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