Return migration in academia: an analysis of German-affiliated researchers by gender, cohort and discipline using Scopus publications 1996-2020

Xinyi Zhao , Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) /University of Oxford
Samin Aref, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Emilio Zagheni , Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR)
Guy Stecklov, University of British Columbia

The international migration of researchers is a highly prized dimension of scientific mobility, and the departure and return of academics are especially critical to national brain circulation. However, tracking migration life courses of researchers is challenging due to data limitations. This study uses Scopus bibliometric data on 8 million publications from 1.1 million researchers who have published at least once with an affiliation address from Germany in 1996-2020. Several key steps and algorithms we develop enable us to construct the partial life histories of published researchers in this period. We explore both out-migration of researchers with German affiliations as well as the subsequent return of a share of this group – return migrants. Our analyses shed light on important career stages and gender disparities between researchers who remain in Germany, those who migrate out, and those who eventually return. Return migration streams are even more gender imbalanced and point to the importance of additional efforts to attract female researchers back to Germany. We document a slightly declining trend in return migration with cohorts which, for most disciplines, is associated with decreasing German collaboration ties among cohorts of researchers who leave Germany. Also, gender disparities for the most gender imbalanced disciplines are unlikely to be mitigated by return migration given the gender compositions we observe for cohorts of researchers who leave Germany and those who return. This analysis revealing news dimensions of scholarly migration by providing a picture of return migration of published researchers calls for further efforts to academic sustainability.

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 Presented in Session 63. New data sources on international migration