International Return Migration and the Effects on Earnings

Abstract

This paper investigates the economic incentives for international migration from a high wagecountry by estimating the wage and employment effects abroad as well as after return migration.Positive wage effects are found for men. Women, on the contrary, do not gain from internationalmigration on average. This seems to be a tied mover effect. Men migrate for job-related reasons, themajority due to a job-transfer, while most women report that they are accompanying their partnerabroad. Consistent with this, male migrants work more and female migrants work less abroad thantheir peers in the home country and this is also reflected in their earnings. For all migrants, I findstrong negative employment and earnings effects immediately after return migration. In terms ofearnings, men recover fast and are rewarded for their international experience but women experiencelong-lasting negative labor market effects. The results are estimated using full population registerdata and survey data on Danish return migrants.