On the occupational choices of return migrants

Migration, entrepreneurship and development: critical questions

“…They also find any formal education received by migrants while abroad to be insignificant for the entrepreneurship decision once they have returned. Similar results were obtained for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, the Kyrgyz Republic, Romania and Tajikistan by Lianos and Pseiridis (2009) Ilahi (1999), Dustmann and Kirchkamp (2002) and Mesnard (2004) arrive at a similar conclusion showing return migrants are particularly prone to invest savings from abroad in business ventures back home, suggesting temporary migration may at times be employed as a strategy to overcome credit constraints faced in the country of origin.…”

Impacts of Return Migration on Rural U.S. Communities

“…The human capital impact of return migration to the rural United States is equally underresearched, especially compared with the "brain drain" of youth out-migration (Domina 2006;Sherman and Sage 2011). Much more is known of returnee impacts in other countries, such as China, and impacts of international return migrants (Cassarino 2000;Demurger and Xu 2011;Latapí 2009;Lianos and Pseiridis 2009;Maron and Connell 2008;Murphy 2000;Thomas 2008;Zhao 2002). In almost all cases, human capital impacts are described in positive terms, a "brain gain" for economically disadvantaged regions and countries.…”

Occupational choice of return migrants

“…Self-employment is also higher among return migrants, especially among migrants who acquire formal and informal training while abroad, who spend a longer time in the destination country, and intend to resettle permanently in the home country [10]. However, it is also possible that return migrants who intend to re-emigrate after a short period at home do not feel a need to commit themselves to wage employment in the home country and have returned just to start or oversee a business that is usually run by a spouse or other family member.…”

“…Evidence from data collected in selected Eastern European and Central Asian countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Romania, and Tajikistan) shows that return migrants with a secondary education or higher are much more likely to be self-employed or wage employed in their home country, with secondary school educated migrants much more likely to be own-account selfemployed than migrants with less than a secondary education or those with a college education ( Figure 3) [10]. One of the key elements in the analysis of return migration and occupational choice is the inclusion of counterfactuals to account for the possibility that return migrants who found higher paid employment after they returned or who started a business are more motivated or have higher abilities and would have done better regardless of migration.…”

“…This decision process is depicted in Figure 1: the migrant decided from the start to make a few trips abroad, but with no intention of settling abroad permanently. Moreover, at the time of arrival back in their home country, migrants who were unsuccessful in their migration venture as well as those who had been successful in accumulating enough savings are more likely to be self-employed [10]. Unsuccessful migrants generally choose self-employment at first but then switch to wage employment as they spend more time in their home country, demonstrating the "parking lot" hypothesis: people work in the informal sector only until they can move to formal-sector wage employment.…”