PublicationArticle (with peer review)

Home Sweet Home: Returns to Returning in the Age of Mass Migration

Abstract

Despite significant circular migration flows historically and today, their economic impacts remain understudied. Using data on predominantly rural Swedish migrants who returned from the United States during the Age of Mass Migration, we estimate returns to temporary migration in terms of wealth, income, demographic, and social outcomes. We find substantial wealth effects but limited evidence of increased labor income or occupational upgrading. Male returnees held nearly double the wealth of stayers, likely due to overseas savings, while female returnees gained wealth mainly through marriage. These findings highlight the need to consider wealth when evaluating the economic returns of temporary migration.

Link to the article.

Ejermo, O., Enflo, K., Eriksson, B., & Prawitz, E. (2025). Home sweet home: Returns to returning in the age of mass migration. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 17(4), 29–59.

Details

Author: Ejermo, O., Enflo, K., Eriksson, B., & Prawitz, E.
Publication year: 2025
Published in: American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 17(4)

Similar content

Article (with peer review)

A Literature Review of the Nexus between Migration and Internationalization

Hatzigeorgiou, A. & Lodefalk, M.

Publication year

2021

Published in

Journal of International Trade & Economic Development

Abstract

Protectionism and anti-globalization tides have been rising already before the COVID-19 pandemic, with Brexit and the China-U.S. trade war, as two examples. A continued disruption to global trade, investment and value chains could worsen global development. Economic recovery will require restoring firms’ ability to trade, offshore and invest globally. To achieve this, it will be useful to understand the role of migration for foreign trade, investment and other aspects of internationalization. In this paper we review and discuss over 100 papers published about migrants’ roles on international trade, foreign direct investment and offshoring. Although the evidence suggests that migration facilitates trade and internationalization, we also note substantial gaps and inconsistencies in the existing literature. The aim of this paper is to encourage further research and assist policymakers in their efforts to promote economic recovery including internationalization.

Scandinavia: Refugees at work

Publication year

2019

Published in

Abstract

Germany was the top destination country by far for refugees arriving in the years between 2014 and 2017. But much-smaller Sweden received more asylum applications in relation to its population. The other two Scandinavian countries – Norway and Denmark – also saw significant numbers of asylum seekers in relation to their small populations. Since then, Scandinavian countries have turned to the sizable task of integrating new arrivals into the labour market. Refugees have struggled to find work in the Scandinavian countries. Figure 1 shows the employment rate (per cent) among adult refugees in Sweden, Denmark and Norway by years after arrival in the host country. As shown in Figure 1 only between 20 and 35 per cent of male refugees are working two years after arrival. The share in work increases with each year after arrival but employment generally plateaus after ten to fifteen years, significantly below the employment rate among the overall population. Female refugees need more time than males to find work. They usually have less schooling than their male counterparts and often bear children after arrival.48 Employment among female refugees picks up after some time though.

Refugees have long faced several barriers to finding work in Scandinavia, including lower average levels of education than the domestic workforce, lack of host-country language skills, a limited professional network and discrimination.49 These challenges, combined with the large number of arrivals in 2015–16, increased the willingness of Scandinavian governments to promote faster tracks to employment. In Denmark large reforms of integration policies were introduced in 2016. This led to substantial improvements in labour market outcomes.

Article (with peer review)

Migration and Servicification: Do Immigrant Employees Spur Firm Exports of Services?

Lodefalk, M. & Hatzigeorgiou, A.

Publication year

2019

Published in

The World Economy

Abstract

Services play an increasingly important role in production, employment and international trade but are subject to substantially higher trade costs relative to manufactured goods. Knowledge of how these trade costs can be mitigated is important for facilitating trade of services. In this paper, we analyze the role of immigrant employees as facilitators of firm exports of services, a role that remains largely unexamined. We bridge the gap in existing research by drawing on new data for nearly 30,000 Swedish firms during the period 1998‐2007 within a heterogeneous firm framework. The results have important policy implications. As the multilateral approach to facilitating trade is challenged and more countries are imposing measures to restrict the cross‐country mobility of people, policymakers may need to find new ways to promote exports of services. Our results indicate that immigrant employees spur firms’ export of services activities: hiring one additional foreign‐born worker can increase services exports by approximately 2.5 percent, on average, with a stronger effect found for skilled and newly arrived immigrants. Therefore, policymakers could leverage the findings of this study to implement initiatives that utilize high‐skilled immigrants to promote services exports.