The Economic Re-integration of Returnees in Uruguay. A Qualitative - PDF document

The Economic Re-integration of Returnees in Uruguay. A Qualitative Approach to the Reasons behind a Poor Labor Market Integration Introduction The most recent return wave of Uruguayan migrants began in 2008, with the onset of the economic recession affecting the U.S. and Spain. This flow has led the reversal of the historical negative net migration (Koolhaas and Nathan, 2013). However, for the last three years (2014-2016) this phenomenon has been declining and, for example, the Spanish statistics are capturing a recent recovery of Uruguayan origin immigration. The literature regarding what seems to be turning into a closed cycle of return migration agrees that there are at least three groups of Uruguayan returnees that have faced the greatest difficulties in the access to non-precarious employment. First, the people returning from Spain, followed by returnees from the United States; second, the male returnees; and third, the most educated returnees, and though they tend to vanish after a certain time of settlement they could last for at least three years in Uruguay (Koolhaas 2015). These difficulties concerning the access to the labor market were also observed in other Latin American countries such as Ecuador, Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina (Vela Peón & Cabezas 2015, Prieto & Koolhaas 2014, Gonzalez-Ferrer 2014, Schramm 2011, Nunan & Peixoto 2012, Masferrer et al. 2017). The reasons for this poor labor market integration of returnees have been widely studied -mainly from a quantitative perspective- in other regions of the world but have been quite overlooked for the Uruguayan cases. The evidence for other regions points to (i) the eventual negative selection affecting returnees (Wahba 2014; Wahba & Zenou 2009); (ii) the mismatch between the labor opportunities in the hosting and emigration countries and the inefficiency of the policies focused on promoting and supporting return migration (Parella et al. 2014; Cavalcanti & Parella 2012; Koser & Kuschminder 2015); (iii) as well as to the lack of preparation of the return (Cassarino 2014; Mercier et al. 2016). Within the Latin American region, the qualitative approach has also made meaningful contributions to the understanding of the poor economic reintegration of recent return migrants. Among them, we can highlight the importance of social ties´ weakness during the period of emigration (Herrera 2016; Schramm 2011; Maguid &

Cerrutti 2016; Cerrutti & Maguid 2017) and the mismatches between the skills acquired abroad and the skills valued in the country of return (Cobo et al. 2010; Cobo 2008). This research adopts a qualitative approach to explore the incidence of the factors above-mentioned in the economic re-integration of Uruguayan returnees. Based on the migrants’ perspective we discuss the role played by the following dimensions: 1) the labor trajectory and its interactions with the mobility trajectory, 2) the decision-making process, and the preparedness of return and 3) the skills and human capital acquired during the emigration. Assuming that the perceptions of returnees about their own experience are as valuable as the evidence provided by the statistical approach (Sayad 2010), this paper contributes with the description of the experiences of return and economic reintegration based on qualitative analysis of interviews conducted among Uruguayan returnees in late 2015. Our research has focused on those returnees who resided for at least two years in Spain or the United States, between 2008 and 2015, whose return was voluntary, and who are at working ages. The selection of these two countries of origin is supported by the magnitude of the return flow registered from 2009 to 2012. Spanish economic crisis marked the beginning of a long process of economic recession, depreciation of human capital and exacerbation of the already ethnic segmented the market labor (Cebolla, Miyar and Muñoz-Comet 2015, Vidal-Cosío 2014). Although the intensity of the return of South Americans from the United States was lower, it was somehow more traumatic since the flow mobilized by the economic impact of the crisis was added to a significant increase in deportations. As a result, the number of annual returns that Uruguay received from 2008 grew to reach its maximum value in 2012, when it surpassed six thousand people (Koolhaas 2015a). The paper structures into four sections following this introduction. First, we present the literature review and the main concepts used in the paper. Second, we present the data and methods utilized in the analysis. Third, we discuss the main findings. Finally, we draw the main conclusions.

1. Background Fortunately, the recent literature on return migration has left behind the linear association with the dichotomy of failure-success of migration experiences (Durand 2004). The nature of return involves many features. First, the return could be voluntary or forced. Second, it could be driven by economic hardship as much as by the achievements, i.e., the fulfillment of saving goals, the completion of studies, or the acquisition of capital. Return migration could also respond to fears, such as the fear of deportation or the fear of losing a beloved family member overseas.Moreover, it could be the outcome of satisfaction with the achievement of non-material goals, like “living the adventure of migration” or “exploring the world.” The first of these explanations for the precarious reintegration of returnees relates to the educational selectivity of return (Wahba 2015). The evidence for Uruguay shows that returnees from the Spain are negatively selected, while returnees from the United States show a polarized selectivity pattern (Prieto et al., 2015). However, the mechanisms through which this bias could affect the returnee’s economic performance were not discussed so far. The labor trajectories of Uruguayan returnees before, during, and after migration have been disregarded and whether returnees have faced similar labor difficulties before leaving Uruguay or during migration, remains ignored. Nor it has been discussed whether migration depreciates or appreciates human capital, though evidence fro Senegal and Mexico pointed out that occupations below the qualification at the foreign destination, could negatively affect the subsequent economic reintegration back home (Mezger & Flahaux 2013, Cobo 2008). The second group of evidence here discussed concern the preparation of return (de Haas et al. 2014; González-Ferrer 2014). From this perspective, the non-prepared returns are more likely to trigger a difficult re-integration in home country (Cassarino 2014; Cassarino 2013). The return preparedness is also related to the ability to mobilize not only material (economic capital) assets but also non-material assets, such as social networks (Gandini et al. 2015). The weakening of social networks during emigration has found to negatively affect the future economic performance of returnees (Piracha 2009; Wahba & Zenou 2012; Glick, 1998). The lack of social networks may be especially relevant in contexts such as Uruguay, where social capital is an important asset for employment and social inclusion (Filgueira 2001). Precisely, this paper constitutes the first attempt to contrast the hypothesis arguing that the difficulties faced