Return Migration Decisions: A Study on Highly Skilled Chinese in Japan (Life Course Research)

Ruth Achenbach develops a model of individual return migration decision making, which examines both the process and the decisive factors in return migration decision making of Chinese highly skilled workers and students in Japan. She proposes to answer a question yet insufficiently explained by migration research: why do migrants deviate from their migration intentions and return sooner or later than planned, or not at all? Her study integrates factors from the spheres of career, family and lifestyle, and redefines stages in long-term decision-making processes, thereby contributing to decision and migration theory. She analyzes migrants’ shifting priorities over the course of migration, including a perspective on life course and on the impact of the triple catastrophe of March 11, 2011.