Returning home: An evaluation of Hungarian return migration

Abstract

This paper deals with the Hungarian return migration process and the importance of identity changes for migration decisions. Outmigration of labour force from Hungary and other East Central European countries has intensified after the EU accession in 2004 and 2007. The possibility of free movement encouraged many Eastern and Central European citizens to leave their country; however, this is not a one-way process. A significant number of migrants returned to the home country with newly acquired skills and other assets. The majority of migration theories evaluate return migration by the role of family, motivations or different kinds of acquired capital, but the importance of identity change is less considered. Our primary aim is to investigate the future migration strategy of Hungarian returnees. The paper is based on national policy analysis and indepth interviews. According to our results, interviewees highlighted the role of work experience and family status. In general, highly skilled returnees met fewer obstacles during their return due to higher flexibility and former employer contracts, but family issues might represent more obstacles during the return. Lower skilled returnees were more dissatisfied with their return, especially those who migrated together with their family members. Hence, the chance for another emigration was higher than in the highly skilled group.

Return migration and identity change: A Hungarian case study

“…To date, the primary concern of Hungarian social geography has mainly focused on emigration in terms of several different migration processes, such as migration of refugees to Europe (Kocsis et al 2016, Farkas-Dövényi 2018. Studies on return migration, its individual and social aspects, and the practical, economic-development utilisation of this phenomenon (Kovács et al 2013, Lados-Hegedűs 2016, Csányi 2018) are even rarer. However, similarly to emigration and remigration, labour mobility has also increased in Hungary since 1990, including inland or cross-border commuting on a daily basis or less often (Illés-Kincses 2012, Kovács et al 2015.…”

“…The phenomenon of remigration is diversely defined and interpreted in several different theoretical frameworks (Gmelch 1980, Cassarino 2004, OECD 2008, van Houte-Davids 2008, Sussman 2011, Lados-Hegedűs 2016. The concept of returnees can also be interpreted in many ways.…”

“…Several programmes and initiatives tackling brain drain were implemented to minimise the negative effects of emigration and support return migration at various geographical scales (e.g. at the national, regional or local level) (Kovács et al 2013, Lados-Hegedűs 2016. Currently no comprehensive migration policy dealing with out and return migration in the European Union exists (Kálmán 2016, Nadler et al 2016.…”

“…1. 2019: 150-167; DOI: 10.15196/RS090109 ment of the EU in 2004, the free movement of workers has caused a significant number of emigrants (in millions) to leave East-Central Europe, creating complex problems related to the emigration of highly skilled workers such as physicians (Lados-Hegedűs 2016, Boros-Pál 2016, Glorius 2018. Evidence of re-emigration consists of different emigration or immigration flows, interpreted as circular migration (Illés 2018).…”

A Magyarországon élő külföldi kötődésű népesség térbeli autokorreláltsága

“…Az elemzés tárgyát azzal magyarázzuk, hogy napjainkban sokkal gyakrabban vizsgálják a Magyarországról kivándorlókat (Siska-Szilasi et al 2016, Siskáné Szilasi et al 2017, Egedy 2017, Illés 2018, Blaskó-Gödri, 2016, mint a hazánkba legálisan külföldről érkezőket. Tanulmányunkban a Magyarországra vándorlók területi jellegzetességeinek elemzésével kiegészítjük a nemzetközi vándorlás hazai területi vizsgálataiban eddig bemutatott eredményeket (Egedy 2017, Péti et al 2017, Lados-Hegedűs 2016, Hegedűs-Lados 2017, Kincses 2018.…”