When Home Is No Longer There:Return Migration in a Time of Crisis

Mónica Ibáñez Angulo

University of Burgos

miban@ubu.es

Migratory Processes in Europe

Одесса 24-25 09 2010

Return Migration:

1. A decision involving a social group

2. Complex, heterogeneous and multifaceted social process: “mix of personal, family, emotional and economic reasons” (Tollefsen 1995; King 2000)

3. Not an exception: temporary migration is “often

the rule rather than the exception” (Dustman 1996; 2001)

4. Leaving / Returning; home/abroad; being/belonging

- Scarce literature: - Outside governmental programmes- Increase in the last years: increasing number of migrants;

technologies of mobility; asylum seekers; brain-drain

- Push Factors Abroad: - Forced Return Migration: irregular, outlaws; failed asylum seekers- Return of Displaced Peoples: environmental disasters,

wars & conflicts; resettlement policies;

- Pull Factors Home: - Voluntary Return: McKeown’s free migrants - Always shaped by economic, socio-cultural and individual

factors.

Individual Attributes- Sex, age, marital status- Place of residence of relatives and household

size- Awareness of being needed at home

- Death of family member- Patriotic reasons

- Education- Temporal duration of migration

Individual attributes do matter but to different degrees

Economic Variables

- Wage differentials: Rogers (1984) and Russell (1986) vs. Dustman (2001)

- Type of work available and desirable at home and abroad

- Cost of living home/abroad

- Unemployment

Socio-Cultural Imponderabilia- Integration abroad / Re-integration home

- Attachment to cultural values- Side-effects of political emphasis on integration

- Achievement of goals: Satisfaction- Success / Failure- Abroad: difficulties in social integration; symbolic

distance; political emphasis on integration; - Origin: re-integration & distinctiveness (upward

social mobility); time abroad; perceptions of homeland.

- Networks abroad / home- Remittance behaviour

Return Migration Policies

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) Art. 13 (2): “Everyone has a right to leave any country, including his/her own and return to his/her country”.

- Sending / Receiving countries- Failure of guest-worker policies- Policing policies: borders / irregular- Co-development / bilateral agreements- Failure:

- Lack of effectiveness- Regarded negatively- Have not transformed the structure of sending

countries

Spanish Context- Transposition of EU Directives, especially

Directive 2003/110 & Directive 2008/115 (known as Return Directive)

- Data:- National Statistic on Immigrants, ‘Encuesta

Nacional de Inmigrantes’ (2007)- Statistic on Residential Variations, ‘Estadística

de Variaciones residenciales’ (INE):• Foreigners who leave and remove their names• Foreigners who are registered at one address

but not living there (renting/selling)• ‘Expired Registrars’

- Limitations: data do not specify where they move to

Graph 1: Nationality of Returnees

0

20000

40000

60000

80000

100000

120000

140000

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

European Union

Other Europe

Africa

America

Asia

Australia

Stateless

Graph 2: Destination of Returnees

020000400006000080000

100000120000140000160000180000

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

European Union

Other Europe

Africa

America

Asia

Australia

Unknow n

Expired

Graph 3: Expired Registers

0

20000

40000

60000

80000

100000

2006 2007 2008 2009

Europa No EU

Africa

America

Asia

Australia

Stateless

TABLE 1: Destination (files) and nationality (columns) of returnees 2009

TotalEuropean Union

Other Europe Africa America Asia Australia Stateless

TOTAL 288269 71748 14174 53817 122748 25465 278 39

European Union 17080 15480 78 883 481 155 3 0

Other Europe 1642 153 1411 10 61 6 0 1

Africa 4105 50 2 4040 8 5 0 0

America 14911 605 9 11 14268 16 1 1

Asia 1417 51 4 4 15 1343 0 0

Australia 52 30 1 0 5 0 16 0

Unknown 94849 55379 2114 12663 15793 8866 25 9

Expired 154213 0 10555 36206 92117 15074 233 28

Graph 4: Nationaliy of Returnees 2009

European Union25%

Other Europe5%

Africa19%

America42%

Asia9%

Graph 5: Nationality of Registered Foreigners 2009

European Union40%

Other Europe4%

Africa18%

America33%

Asia5%

- Return Migration Policies in Spain- LO4/2000 amended in 2003 & 2009

- Programmes:- Beneficiaries: third country nationals

1) Seasonal Labour Migration

2) Forced Return

3) Assisted Voluntary Return:

3.1 Reintegration purposes

3.2 Humanitarian reasons, PREVIE (2003)

3.3 Plan for unemployed (RD4/2008 & RD1800/2008):- Payment in advance of accumulated

unemployment benefits.- Conditions:

– Must be unemployed and have the right to unemployment benefits;

– Third country citizens with bilateral agreement:• only agreements with two African countries Morocco

and Tunisia • only one agreement with one Asian country,

Philippines• does not apply to Romanians & Bulgarians

– Must commit not to return to Spain within the following three years;

– Must hand over all Spanish documents prior to return.

– Payment in two parts: 40% & 60%

Limitations: - the accumulated unemployment benefits may be too

small- many immigrants lack benefits accumulated - in Spain the situation is, comparatively, much better

than in the countries of origin - they have obtained the Spanish nationality - they will lose social benefits (including family

members)

Data: - IOM (2009): fewer than 1.400- Pajares, M. (2009): 3.700

TABLE 2: Nationality of Returnees with the ‘Plan’ in 2009 (Pajares 2010)

Andorra 2

Argentina 385

Brasil 177

Canada 1

Chile 168

Colombia 684

Dominican R. 24

Ecuador 1.636

USA 3

Philippines 3

Morocco 20

Mexico 6

Paraguay 62

Peru 284

Russia 14

Ukraine 77

Uruguay 117

Venezuela 36

TOTAL 3.699

TABLE 3: Returnees with the ‘Plan’ 2009-2010 (Pajares; INE, MTAS)

2009 2010

Plan Gen Com Gen Com- Madrid 802 470.222 348.616 506.180

378.091

- Murcia 421 150.980 51.826 156.709 54.561

- Barcelona 369 492.258 194.877 505.104 219.908

- Valencia 248 101.915 110.988 112.937 125.956

- Alicante 246 108.322 155.199 113.540 170.783

- Málaga 141 65.833 120.685 75.006 126.827

- Las Palmas 106 62.208 66.180 66.142 71.147

- Balearics 106 85.773 102.037 90.251 113.128

Effects of the Economic Crisis:1) Profile of migrants who apply:- Rise in the number of migrants who apply- Before year 2008:

- more women than men.- most were newcomers- most of them have not gone through processes

of family reunification2) Countries of origin:- Less exports of raw materials- Less foreign investment- Less remittances- Less development aid

3) In Spain:- Unemployment in construction (male)- Domestic employment receding - Housing: problems to face the mortgage payments.

Options:

- One spouse returns (with children) and the other remains renting rooms and trying to sell the huse

- They offer the house to the bank without success

- The leave the country and not pay.

Concluding Remarks- RM: never a totally voluntary: resource mobilization- Difficulties defining ‘home’ - RM does not always constitute the end of the

‘migratory cycle’: re-migration & temporary migration- Voluntary return is preferable than forced return and

it is more cost effective,YET:- Policies on AVR are not as successful as politicians

envisaged: most migrants return outside these policies

- Current emphasis on (co)development reifies the core/periphery dichotomy

- Other type of programmes should be implemented: e.g. promotion of citizenship-nationality-naturalization

- Danger associating return migration policies with economic crisis

- RM is not a valid option for most migrants: worse situation in origin

Spanish Policies to promote RM: - migrants lost their rights- lack of unemployment benefits or too small- The very requirements of the Plan itself contain

barriers that limit the outcomes

Thank you!!благодарность !!