Ethnic Origin and the Emigration of German Nationals: An Explorative Study of Return and Onward Migration

It can be suggested that immigrants who emigrate should prefer to move to their or their parents’ country of origin due to their specific transnational human and social capital. Utilizing data from the first wave of the German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study (GERPS) on 882 German emigrants with foreign roots, the research presented in this paper examined differences with regard to the ethnic origin of such emigrants and whether they remigrated to their or their parents’ country of origin. The research presented in this paper addressed the question of whether and how immigrants’ emigration patterns interact with individual migration motives and the cultural distance between Germany and the individual’s country of ethnic origin. On average only a minority (30%) of German emigrants with a migration background actually moved to their (parents’) country of origin. However, there are notable patterns of differences with regard to the emigrants’ ethnic origins. Moreover, there is some evidence that the decision of whether to emigrate to the country of origin is strongly determined by family-related reasons and less by career-related motives. Finally, the larger the cultural distance between Germany and the country of origin, the less likely individuals were to emigrate to their (parents’) country of origin instead of moving onwards to a third country. Thus, the explorative study enhances research on return and onward migration by calling attention to family- and culture-related determinants that have been largely neglected so far.