Abstract
This chapter provides a state-of-the-art literature review about research that aims to explain the return, repeat, circular, and onward migration of the highly skilled migrants around the world. After it describes the status quo in the knowledge economy and the international race for talent, it presents the relevant theories and concepts of migration in the social sciences and how these theories accommodate the phenomena of return, repeat, and onward migration. A special section is devoted to selection. The chapter then summarizes, evaluates, and juxtaposes existing empirical evidence related to theoretical predictions. Observables such as education, income, gender, and home country as well as unobservables such as ability, social capital, and negotiating skills play a strong role in influencing return, repeat, and onward migration decisions. Yet, there is no consensus on the direction of the effect. The chapter discusses shortcomings and limitations along with policy lessons. It concludes by highlighting holes in the literature and the need for better data.
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Notes
- 1.
For example, to attract high-skilled migrants, Canada has been going after those denied the H-1B visa in the United States by advertising on US billboards (Kerr et al. 2016).
- 2.
OECD (2009) provides a useful summary of policies for high-skilled immigrants in the OECD.
- 3.
For the impact of skilled emigration on developing countries and the policy options of developed countries see Lowell and Findlay (2001).
- 4.
However, skilled emigration from developing countries is generally not a major cause of skilled shortages (Clemens 2013).
- 5.
Except the United Kingdom which introduced its own points-based system with different tiers in 2008, and Denmark and Ireland that have their own systems.
- 6.
Lowell (2010) provides a good review of the admission system of foreign-born STEM workers in the United States.
- 7.
Together with attracting, they constitute the four pillars of the Global Talent Competitiveness Index.
- 8.
For an excellent review and a theoretical synthesis see Massey (1999).
- 9.
An exception is Dierx (1988) who developed a theoretical life-cycle model analyzing the impact of the spatial distribution of a family’s stock of human capital on its migration decision, including repeat migration.
- 10.
Dustmann and Weiss (2007) explained return migration from the United Kingdom by allowing for the marginal cost of being abroad to be greater than the diminishing marginal utility of wealth. Dustmann (2003) modeled the optimal migration duration and assumed that immigrants’ accumulated savings in Germany had higher purchasing power in their home country. Using endogenous return intentions the study found an inverse relationship between host country wages and completed migration durations.
- 11.
Selection applied by host countries who screen potential immigrants is not discussed. For an overview of migrant selection by visa category see Aydemir (2013).
- 12.
- 13.
Compared to immigrants from EU countries who enjoy free mobility, Turks and guest workers from the former Yugoslavia had the lowest odds of leaving Germany.
- 14.
This is consistent with Borjas-Bratsberg, who predicted that family unification immigrants or chain immigrants are different than the initial economic immigrants and therefore selection issues are not as relevant; the self-selection of family returnees is most likely not clear-cut either.
- 15.
Monti (2018) confirms that Swedish citizenship actually increases the probability of return for forced migrants.
- 16.
Lindstrom and Massey (1994) were not able to find biases in cross-sectional earnings assimilation results due to selective emigration of Mexicans in the United States. Constant and Massey (2003) confirmed that selective emigration among immigrants in Germany did not distort cross-sectional estimates of earnings assimilation in a relevant way.
- 17.
They also found that there was a lot of movement among these firms, opposite to Kerr et al.’s (2015) argument that H1-B workers are “effectively tied” to the firms that hired them initially.
- 18.
Monti (2018) confirms that women are less prone to return migrate and to move onward.
- 19.
It is a normative question if democratic free countries should record the every move of their population, obliging them to reveal why they move, to which country, and for how long?
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Constant, A.F. (2021). Return, Circular, and Onward Migration Decisions in a Knowledge Society. In: Kourtit, K., Newbold, B., Nijkamp, P., Partridge, M. (eds) The Economic Geography of Cross-Border Migration. Footprints of Regional Science(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48291-6_7
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