Hybrid Format
On the Up and Up: Occupational Upgrades for Return Migrants
Elizabeth Jacobs
Migration and Mobility Lab, September 06, 2023
Hybrid Seminar Talk, September 6, 2023 from 11am to 12pm (CEST)
Abstract
As many as half of the world’s 280 million migrants will return home within five years of migrating. Despite the volume and economic importance of return migration, little is known about the economic reintegration of migrants after they return home. Return migrants might experience a career boost after developing skills abroad, or migration might disrupt employment trajectories and lead to occupational downgrading.
This paper examines the labor market re-incorporation of highly skilled migrants who return to the Indian labor market after working in the United States. About a third of skilled Indian migrants in this study leave the U.S. and return to India for work. Using a novel dataset of 7,177 cross-country employment histories constructed from LinkedIn, I find evidence of occupational upgrades for return migrants re-entering the Indian labor market. The findings indicate that U.S. labor market experience and U.S. degrees are associated with being promoted to a higher career position , and prior work U.S. work visa holders also experience a job mobility boost upon returning.
The paper offers a new digital data source to make an important empirical contribution to the literature on return migration, which has long been constrained by data limitations. The findings contribute to our understanding the labor market trajectories of highly skilled immigrants and its important implications for the global recruitment of talent.
About the Author
Liz is a Research Scientist in the Migration and Mobility Lab of the Department of Digital and Computational Demography at the MPIDR. She earned her PhD in Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master’s in Sociology from Columbia University. Her research focuses on international migration flows, gender disparities in migration patterns, return migration and the labor market incorporation of skilled migrants.