Return Migration

by Will Wilkinson on June 15, 2008

Until my recent upsurge in interest in migration issues, thanks to Kerry, I had assumed that relocation was something people did for good and that people came to America to become Americans. I wasn’t aware of the large masses of Poles, Italians, Irish, etc., who came to the U.S. to work for a while, and then left again. And there’s a good reason for that: those people’s ancestors didn’t write American social studies textbooks. Anyway, most Mexicans don’t care that much to be Americans, either. But a lot of them would like to work here. And then, eventually, go home.

This story from Reuter’s about Polish immigrants to England moving back to Poland does a good job of illustrating the dynamic:

Four years after Polish graphic designer Chris Rychter headed to Britain to find work and study as a citizen of the European Union, he and his wife have returned home.

Part of a swelling tide of migration back east, they are having a house built in a suburb of the Polish capital.

“It took me just three days to find a job back in Warsaw,” Rychter, 27, told Reuters. “We never saw Britain as home… We went for the adventure and to get some professional experience.”

[...]

the Rychters show how Europe has shrunk and that — contrary to a popular view — migrant flows are not all one-way.

Economists now see a turnstile or pendulum effect of people moving between countries after quite short stints, in search of better conditions.

Statistics on migration within the 27-nation EU are not precise, but around half of an estimated one million people from eastern Europe who moved to Britain since 2004 have already returned home, according to a recent report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), a British think-tank.

Increased labor market integration with Mexico would help improve the Mexican economy, making it relatively more attractive for Mexicans to stay or return, just like it’s doing for Poland.

  • John Thacker
    The danger is that like the German minister said we will expect guest-workers and instead get people who settle here.

    And worse, people who settle here but who never assimilate (and/or are never allowed to).
  • A genuine guest-worker program would encourage just that to happen, perhaps by prohibiting them from staying beyond a certain amount of time (if there are quotas, it would even assist in making it equitable by preventing some laborers from hogging the slots continually). The danger is that like the German minister said we will expect guest-workers and instead get people who settle here.
  • ancestors --> descendants
  • jumbolachi
    I'd like to add that increased labor market integration with Mexico would probably improve the U.S. economy as well. However, a few people, particularly some of those who compete with Mexican immigrants for jobs, would lose out.
  • John Thacker
    Thomas Sowell's Ethnic America is a bit old these days, but also made this point. It's quite an interesting book with a lot of data, focusing on particular ethnic groups and their experiences, similarities, and differences.
  • Stentor
    A related point is that stepped-up border enforcement in the US (and the continuing paucity of opportunities for legal immigration) has made more Mexican immigrants decide to settle here in a more permanent fashion (including bringing more whole families), because it's not worth the expense and risk to go back and forth over the border to maintain ties back home.
  • jumbolachi
    There is empirical evidence that backs this hypothesis up. The Public Policy Institute of California put out a a paper a few years ago suggesting that increased border enforcement actually caused an increase in the level of unauthorized migrants living in the country.

    Let's see if disqus allows html links: Here is a press release for said paper.
  • Let me recommend again, as I did in another tread, Saskia Sassen's book _Guests and Aliens_. It's more about migration in Europe than to and from the US but also covers that to some degree. It's a bit old now but still very useful and is an excellent book on this subject. It's important not to over-state the case. About 30% of Italians and the like who moved to the US eventually returned to Italy. That's a lot and a lot more than Americans usually think, but it's obviously also a pretty clear minority. The particular features of different migrations also need to be kept in mind when trying to say what will happen in any given case. But, what most people "know" about the subject is mostly made up. Sassen's book is a good place to start.
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