Return migration refers to the individual or family decision of a migrant to leave a host country and to return permanently to the country of origin. Research topics include the return migration process, motivations for returning, the experiences returnees encounter, and the impacts of return migration on both the host and the home countries.[1]
The exact numbers are debated, but Mark Wyman concludes: "The totals are so enormous: at least one-third of the 52 million Europeans who left Europe between 1824 and 1924 returned permanently to their homelands."[2]
"Return migration" can be contrasted with repatriation, which is imposed by the host government on a specified group of immigrants.[3] It should also be distinguished from circular migration, in which migrants repeatedly travel between origin and destination countries, for example to plant and harvest crops each season.
- ^ For the recent historiography see Tuncay Bilecen, "To Stay or to Return? A Review on Return Migration Literature" Migration Letters (2022) 19#4 pp. 367–385. https://doi.org/10.33182/ml.v19i4.2092; and Mohamed-Abdullahi Mohamed, and Asmat-Nizam Abdul-Talib "Push–pull factors influencing international return migration intentions: a systematic literature review" Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy (2020) 14#2 pp. 231-246 online
- ^ Mark Wyman, 2005, p. 16.
- ^ Marta Bivand Erdal, "Migration, Forced" in International Encyclopedia of Human Geography (2nd ed. 2020) pp 105-110.