How local community context shapes labour market re-entry and resource mobilisation among return migrants: an examination of rural and urban communities in Mexico

Abstract

ABSTRACTRecent estimates suggest that nearly half of all international migrants return to their communities of origin within five years of emigration. Motivated by high levels of return migration, scholars are increasingly investigating the ways in which return migrants mobilise resources they acquire abroad, such as human and financial capital, to achieve economic mobility upon return. Yet, resource mobilisation and labour market reintegration unfold in heterogeneous community contexts. To understand the labour market reintegration of return migrants in various local contexts, we draw on an eight-year study that included interviews with 153 Mexican returnees to examine how labour market reintegration and resource mobilisation vary across three types of communities: urban, urban-adjacent, and rural. U.S.-Mexico migration is the largest binational return flow in the world, providing a unique opportunity to explore variations in the reintegration experiences of returnees. We find that labour market reintegration and resource mobilisation are contextually embedded processes that respond to the social, economic, and spatial features of migrants’ origin communities. Following our analysis, we extend three testable hypotheses that can guide future research on international migration and return.