High Selection, Low Success: The Heterogeneous Effect of Migrants’ Access to Employment on Their Remigration

Abstract

This article reconciles contrasting findings on the effect of access to employment on remigration by showing that this effect is actually heterogeneous and depends on migrants’ initial educational selection from the origin country. Combining longitudinal data from England and Wales (1971–2011) with data on educational attainment distributions in migrants’ origin countries, we find that the impact of being out of a job (unemployed or inactive) on the probability to remigrate is larger among migrants who were initially more positively selected in terms of educational attainment. This interaction effect appears stronger for male and recent migrants. Thus, in addition to migrants’ access to employment in the host country, the mismatch between migrants’ initial selection — that partly captures their premigration expectations — and their employment status at destination helps explain remigration behaviors.