Return and Circular Migration Motives of Nordic and Baltic Citizens during the Covid-19 Pandemic and Diaspora Engagement

The contribution of this article is to collect and evaluate developed-country citizen-migration motives during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic (March 2020–March 2021) by concentrating on return and circular migration to the Nordic and Baltic countries. The focus is on trying to understand who returned and why, and if these individuals were likely to stay or engage in further circular migration. In our exploratory study, we engaged with prevailing migration theories to analyse our unique dataset, to ascertain how well existing scholarship might account for and predict migration during a crisis situation. The study makes a valuable contribution to the ongoing discussion on the effect of Covid-19 on migration patterns, especially of highly qualified migrants, and calls for further scholarly investigation into the impact of emotions, social relations and obligations on return and circular migration motivations. This study also reveals how governments with established diaspora policies and initiatives that promote return migration engaged with the returning citizens.