The meaning,modalities and consequences of return migration

Return migration and its consequences has attracted increasing attention since Western European countries adopted policies in the mid 1970s to stop the inflow of foreign workers and to promote reintegration of emigrants. This paper explores the definition of return migration, discusses the different contexts in which return migration arises, and points out the many gaps that exist in understanding return migration and its consequences. The report concludes that there is no consensus on the definition of return migration; future advances in its analysis and measurement depend on the availability of specific criteria to distinguish return movements from other migration taking place in the world today. Also, relatively little attention has been devoted to return flows of migrants in developing countries due to paucity of information and fluidity of some of the movements involved. Yet another area for concern is the lack of information pertaining to female emigrants. Some recommendations that may lead to the eventual satisfaction of these needs include: 1) defining returnees as persons who, having the nationality of the country that they are entering, have spent at least one year abroad and have returned with the intention of staying at least one year in the country of their nationality; 2) having coontries with important emigration flows monitor return migration by gathering and publishing information on returning migrants; 3) giving particular attention to the problems faced by female returnees and adopting measures to ensure equal aid to males and females; 4) studying and monitoring the consequences of return migration on whole families instead of on only certain members of the family; 5) monitoring the consequences of sizeable repatriation flows, giving particular attention to the success of reintegration programs; 6) developing novel methods to monitor and study the impact of return flows of emigrants whose situation in the receiving state was irregular.