Takaisin Suomeen: mitä kohorttiaineisto voi kertoa paluumuuttajien työmarkkina-asemista?

Around 9,800 Finns move abroad each year. Since the mid-1990s, temporary migration to Europe has become more common, but we know little of how this impacts the salary levels and careers of these temporary migrants when they return to Finland. This article uses cohort data, which includes a 10 percent random sample of Finnish citizens born in 1963, 1968, 1973, and 1978. We focus on migrants who return in 2005. The migrants have good labour market situations prior to leaving. Two years after return, the median income of the men is 2 times and the women 2.2 times higher when compared to earnings prior to migrating. Factors predicting lower incomes upon return to Finland include female gender, low income before migrating, leaving in any other labor market status than employed, and leaving already in the 1990s. A stay abroad does not signify a loss of labour market status, but is in fact economically beneficial: returnees earn more than Finns on average and the difference remains for 10 years. Such migrants are not pushed abroad by unemployment but are rather pulled by the opportunities available.