Research pick: Two-way ticket - "Revisiting return migration: literature insights and a bibliometric perspective on emerging global mobility trends"

A review in the International Journal of Business Excellence of half a century of scholarship has found that academic interest in why migrants return to their countries of origin has expanded sharply over the past decade. The review reframes return migration as a central feature of the global circulation of skills, rather than a marginal or corrective movement.

The researchers studied 375 peer-reviewed papers published during the period 1972 to 2022. The work thus offers the most comprehensive mapping to date of how this field of social science has evolved in recent decades. The study used bibliometric analysis, a quantitative method that examines patterns in academic publishing such as citation trends, collaboration networks, and thematic clustering. The analysis revealed a steady growth in output, with publication rates rising particularly quickly after 2010. Total citations increases continuously, but the average citations per article declined from 2015 onwards. The authors suspect that this change was down to rapid diversification and specialisation within the field at that time.

They point out that high-ranking journals in migration studies, business, and management dominated the output, as one might expect. This, they suggest, highlights the relevance of return migration to organisational strategy, economic performance, and institutional governance. Scholarly leadership is concentrated in Canada, Spain, the UK, and the USA, although many papers have international authorship.

The review also shows that the focus in this area of research has changed. In the early years covered by the review, research largely addressed aggregate population movements, demographic change, and macro-level migration flows. However, in the two most recent decades covered, research has moved towards the lived experience of return. Gender emerges as a central analytical category, while education, particularly higher education and international student mobility, form a core thematic pillar. The team believes that this reflects a growing engagement with human capital theory, an economic framework that views education and skills as investments shaping productivity and earnings.

Yadav, M., Kumar, M., Dagar, M., Tiwari, N.K., Pandey, A. and Amoozegar, A. (2025) ‘Revisiting return migration: literature insights and a bibliometric perspective on emerging global mobility trends’, Int. J. Business Excellence, Vol. 37, No. 7, pp.1–26.