Measuring Return Migration: The Example of Eastern German Labour Return from Western Germany

Abstract

The study of return migration emerged as a sub-theme of migration studies since the early Laws of Migration were formulated by Ernst Georg Ravenstein (1885/1889). In one of his laws, he explicitly formulates that every migration flow generates a respective counter-flow (Ravenstein 1885, p. 199). Ravenstein observed that these counter-flows are smaller than the original ones, but also acknowledged that it is unclear whether these counter-flows are composed of returning migrants or other groups. This issue is still debated today. While we have been studying return migration for decades, we in fact do not know much about the actual numbers and the geographical distribution of return migration flows. As Dumont and Spielvogel (2008, p. 162) comment: ‘While return migration is a major component of migratory flows, our knowledge of it is still fragmentary.’ Here, they refer to the ‘absence of suitable data’. Similarly, Dustmann and Weiss (2007, p. 239) remark: ‘One difficulty with return migration is its measurement. While many countries have registration procedures in place that allow assessment of the number of incoming immigrants, estimation of outflows of immigrants is less straightforward. There are typically no procedures in place that register immigrants who leave a country.’ While Dustmann and Weiss refer to the perspective of receiving countries, this problem also affects the sending countries, whose existing procedures are not adapted sufficiently to keep track of return migration. From the home country’s perspective, an approach to the measurement of return migration consists in registering the immigration of fellow nationals. Yet this approach might lead to measurement errors, such as the inclusion in the statistics of first-time immigrants, who were nationalised while they were abroad. Additionally, what is lacking is a standard definition of return, which could help in implementing better registration procedures (Smoliner et al. 2013). Because of these shortcomings, the study of return migration is often limited to small, qualitative case studies or estimations in the frame of broader quantitative studies. Furthermore, it is nearly impossible to find representative studies focusing on regional differentiation at the sub-national level.