The labor market incorporation of return migrants

As many as half of the world’s 280 million migrants will return home within five years of migrating. Skilled migrants return with advanced knowledge and capital that can make major contributions to the “brain gain” of origin countries. Despite the volume and economic importance of return migration, little is known about the economic reintegration of return migrants. Return migrants might experience a career boost after developing skills abroad, or migration might disrupt employment trajectories. 

This paper examines the hiring and promotion 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 return to India for work. Using a novel dataset of 7,177 cross-country employment histories created from LinkedIn, I explore how prior U.S. work visa status relates to job mobility in the Indian labor market. I find that while work visas constrain job mobility for migrants in the U.S. labor market, prior H-1B visa status is associated with increased employer changes and promotions for return migrants in the Indian labor market. 

The paper offers a novel 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.