‘There is time to leave, and there is time to come back’. Polish migrants’ decisions about returning from international migration

Abstract

ABSTRACT Return migration has been an ongoing phenomenon, motivated by macro-scale changes in the host and home country e.g. economic crises, changes in state policies, and micro-scale motivations of individual migrants. Drawing upon a qualitative study among Polish return migrants this article looks at the drivers behind their decisions to return to their country of origin after at least a decade-lasting absence; it analyses the stages of the return decision-making. It appears that the reasons for the migrants’ return are related to their life cycle and are characteristic of it. Also, the return decision is multidimensional, multi-stage, and may even take several years. To better understand this process, future research needs to elaborate more on the connection between the initial migration motivations and the reasons for return, along with concentrating on the intermediate stages by which migrants arrive at their decisions. That will also allow for better recognition and understanding of future migration patterns.