The Gendered Returns to Return Migration: Evidence from German Migrants

Economic labor market theories variously predict positive or negative labor market returns from international return migration. Returnees’ home country labor markets could either pay a premium on the human capital acquired through temporary stays abroad or they could punish them for the lack of work experience in the home country. We contribute to the literature on labor market outcomes of return migrants in various ways. First, we examine return migrants to Germany, a high-income country. High-income countries are seldom studied as countries of emigration and let alone as countries of return migration. Second, we analyze several potential labor market outcomes including the likelihood of employment, the intensity of employment (work hours), salary, and occupational status. Third, we ask whether the returns to returning vary by gender. We draw on data from the German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study (GERPS) for return migrants and use the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) as reference group of German non-migrants. We use multivariate analysis methods and entropy balancing to identify the effect of return migration on labor market outcomes. Preliminary findings indicate that return migrants are less likely to be employed than non-migrants and that this difference is larger among women. Among those employed after return, wages and working hours are higher than among non-migrants and the difference is larger among women than men. Finally, the occupational prestige of return migrants is only slightly higher than among non- migrants and there are no differences between men and women.